2011 Ark. App. 737 - Sutton v. Gardner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

22 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Additional factors come into play when one co-tenant asserts adverse possession against the others, because the possession of one tenant-in-common is the possession of all. Because possession by a co-tenant is not ordinarily adverse to other co-tenants, each having an equal right to possession, a co-tenant must give actual notice to other co-tenants that his possession is adverse to their interests or commit sufficient acts of hostility so that their knowledge of his adverse claim may be presumed. The statutory period of time for an adverse-possession claim does not begin to run until such knowledge has been brought home to the other co-tenants. There is no hard-and-fast 1 nrule by which the sufficiency of an adverse claim may be determined; however, the court considers factors such as the relationship of the parties, their reasonable access to the property, kinship, and innumerable other factors to determine if non-posses-sory co-tenants have been given sufficient warning that the status of a co-tenant in possession has shifted from mutuality to hostility. When there is a family relation between co-tenants, stronger evidence of adverse possession is required.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2013 Ark. App. 54 - Washington v. Washington