43 N.C. App. 419 - Young v. Young’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 12 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Because defendants were tenants in common with the plaintiff, their possession for a period of less than twenty years could not be adverse to the plaintiff, absent an actual ouster of the plaintiff. This is so because a tenant in common has the right to possess the property and is presumed to be holding under his true title. Winstead v. Woolard, 223 N.C. 814 , 28 S.E. 2d 507 (1944). The possession of a tenant in common is not considered adverse to his cotenant unless he ousts his cotenant ‘by some clear, positive, and unequivocal act equivalent to an open denial of his [cotenant’s] right.’ Dobbins v. Dobbins, 141 N.C. 210, 214 , 53 S.E. 870, 871 (1906). If the tenant in common gives a deed which purports to convey the whole estate, the grantee therein merely steps into his grant- or’s shoes. As a result, the deed is not color of title as against the grantor’s cotenants, and seven years’ possession under the deed will not ripen title to the whole estate in the grantee. Cox v. Wright, 218 N.C. 342 , 11 S.E. 2d 158 (1940). ‘In the absence of actual ouster, the ouster of one tenant in common by a cotenant will not be presumed from an exclusive use of the common property and the appropriation of its profits to his own use for a less period than twenty years . . . .’ Morehead v. Harris, 262 N.C. 330, 343 , 137 S.E. 2d 174, 186 (1964).””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 63 N.C. App. 447 - McCann v. Travis