Hagan v. Ellis

Citations

• 39 Fla. 463

Syllabus

<p>1. Under the provisions of section 3, chapter 1869, approved February 27, 1872, limitation by adverse possession as against one deriving title from the United States begins to run from the date of the patent, and not from the date of the entry of or final payment for, the land embraced in such patent.</p> <p>2. Equitable estoppels are proper defenses in actions of ejectment in this State, and evidence of such estoppels is admissible under the plea of not guilty.</p> <p>3. Equitable estoppel, so far as it relates to tiie trial of title to land, is a doctrine by which a party is prevented from setting up his legal title because he has through his acts, words or silence, led another to take a position in which the assertion of •the legal title would be contrary to equity and good conscience.</p> <p>-4. If one man knowingly, though he does it passively by looking on, suffers another to purchase and expend money on land, under an erroneous opinion of title, without making known his claim, he shall not afterwards be x>ermitted to exercise his legal right against such person.</p> <p>S. Where x>laintiff in 1855 entered andpaid for land from theUnited States, and in 1861 sold and delivered possession thereof under a bond for title to a third person, and for thirty years thereafter stood by and saw defendants and their predecessors tracing title from his vendee, purchase, claim, possess and improve the property under the belief, and some with positive assurances from plaintiff that he claimed no title to the property, during which time plaintiff made no claim to the property though living' as a neighbor to the occupiers thereof, the plaintiff iU he estopped from recovering possession of such property from the defendants, under a patent issued upon his original entiy in the year 1891.</p> <p><6. While the naked legal title to land of the United States remains in the government until the issue of a patent therefor, the beneficial ownership or equitable title is vested in an