Phinney v. Campbell

Citations

• 16 Wash. 203
• 47 P. 502
• 1896 Wash. LEXIS 35

Syllabus

<p>EJECTMENT — WHEN LIES —EVIDENCE — BOUNDARIES — ESTOPPEL.</p> <p>Possession of land by another, under mistake as to the actual boundary, is not sufficient to defeat an action of ejectment by one holding the legal title, but who owing to such mistake, has never had possession.</p> <p>The fact that a division fence had been built between two adjoining owners through a mistake as to the true boundary line will not estop the legal owner from claiming beyond such fence, although he may have admitted to an intending purchaser from the adjoining owner that the fence was the boundary, if, prior to the purchase, he had informed the purchaser that the line according to a recent survey was quite a distance south of the fence.</p> <p>Where adjoining owners have not established a division fence between them as the real boundary, without regard to the legal calls of their deeds, but have allowed the fence to stand as the boundary until a proper survey should establish the true line, a purchaser from one adjoining owner acquires no greater rights than his grantor, in the absence of estoppel, even if the purchase were made under the supposition that the fence was the true boundary.</p> <p>In an action of ejectment it is not error to admit in evidence a conversation between plaintiff and the defendants’ grantor, when such conversation is in disparagement of the grantor’s title.</p>