Monroe Water Supply Co. v. Starner

Citations

• 242 Pa. 18
• 88 A. 782
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 829

Syllabus

<p>Real property — Ejectment—Title Toy adverse possession — Glaim of ownership — Evidence—Boundaries of land — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. Where in an action of ejectment it appears that the original possession was under a claim of ownership, the statutory period of limitation commences to run from the date of entry, but where the original entry was not under such claim, the statute runs only from the time when by some unequivocal act there was a severance of privity of title between owner and occupier.</p> <p>2. Where in an action of ejectment to recover lands to which defendant claimed title by the admitted possession of his predecessor in occupancy, from whom he had a deed, and of himself, for fifty years, which possession was alleged to have been adverse, the case is for the jury and a verdict for the defendant for part of the tract will be sustained where the issue turned upon the question under what claim the first occupant entered, and there wast evidence in behalf of defendant that about the time his predecessor in title entered into possession, the owner of the larger tract of which the land in dispute was part declared that he had given the latter to such predecessor and that the land was hers; and that ishe had continued to occupy and use the land in the same way until shortly before her death, when she deeded it to the defendant.</p> <p>3. In such a case it is for the jury under the evidence to fix the boundaries within which the defendant and his predecessors had occupied, used, enjoyed and improved the land for the statutory period..</p>