Handley v. Barrett

Citations

• 176 Pa. 246
• 35 A. 133
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 1065

Syllabus

<p>[Marked to be reported.]</p> <p>Ejectment — A Averse possession — Instruction for jury.</p> <p>Where in an action of ejectment the defendant claims title by adverse possession, the whole matter is exclusively for the jury under instructions from the court as to what constitutes such adverse possession.</p> <p>Evidence — Adverse possession — Ejectment.</p> <p>Where the testimony disclosing continuous notorious adverse occupation of the laud in question by the defendants and those under whom they claimed, for purposes of residence and for domestic uses, for a period of nearly forty years, was voluminous, precise, definite and positive, such evidence not only warrants the submission of the case to the jury but justifies a verdict for defendant.</p> <p>Ejectment — Adverse possession — Permissive occupancy.</p> <p>Where a deed is taken for land which is part of a larger tract belonging to the vendor, it does not follow that the vendee cannot acquire by adverse possession land outside of his deed, which was a part of the tract from which his purchase was made.</p> <p>Ejectment — Evidence—Permissive occupation.</p> <p>Defendant having purchased a portion of a larger tract claimed title by adverse possession of adjoining lands of which the paper title, originally in defendant’s vendor, had been conveyed to the plaintiff. For the purpose of showing that the defendant’s occupancy of the disputed land was permissive and subservient to vendor’s title, plaintiff offered to prove that there was a memorandum on vendor’s sales book defining the limits of the land admittedly sold vendee; this followed the account in vendor’s ledger. Held, (1) that the offer was jrroperly rejected by the court below; (2) that even if admitted the evidence would not have justified the inference that the land in dispute was occupied by defendant in subserviency to vendor’s title.</p>