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47 Mo. 297

Lowenberg v. Bernd

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided January 15, 1871

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1871-01-15

<p>1. Lands and land titles — EreciionSy removal of— When personal property — License. —"When one builds a house or fence, or places any other erection upon the land of another, with his permission, and with the intention that it be held as the property of tho builder, it continues personal property, a^d the owner may remove it when the license is withdrawn. (Matson v. Calhoun, 4A Mo. 368.)</p>

Relies on Matson v. Calhoun · Arthur v. Rickards

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently September 1940

11 state decisions

5018711880189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Bliss, Judge,

¶1delivered tbe opinion of tbe court.

¶2Tbe plaintiff claims to be tbe owner of land upon wbicb was situate a log bouse, wbicb defendant removed, and this action is brought for tbe damages suffered. Tbe controversy arose from a disputed boundary line, each party claiming that tbe bouse was situate upon bis own land. Tbe bill of exceptions is very defective in its exhibit of evidence, and it- does not certainly appear that it was taken and signed at tbe trial term. But, waiving this, on looking into the case I find tbe claim of tbe plaintiff to be altogether inequitable. Purchasers of adjoining land are divided by what each consider tbe true line of division. One of them, with tbe knowledge of and without objection from tbe other, builds a bouse, and subsequent purchasers recognize tbe same lino. A survey, however, so changes this line as to throw tbe bouse upon tbe adjoining land, whereupon its owner moves it back within tbe last line. His neighbor, who bad hitherto sup*298posed the house belonged to its purchaser and occupant, and whose vendor had consented to its being built, commences suit for trespass. I care not whether the declarations of law in relation to the division line were technically correct or not. Admitting all that plaintiff claims, there was a license to build the house by the then owner of the land upon which it is claimed to have been built. It was recognized as the property of the builder and his assigns down to the running of the new line, and as soon as the license could be considered as withdrawn the owner removed ‘the building, as he had a right to do. When one builds a house or fence, or places any other' erection upon the land of another with his permission, with the intention that it be held as the property of the builder, it continues personal property, and the owner may remove it when the. license is withdrawn. (Hines v. Ament, 48 Mo. 298; Matson v. Calhoun, 44 Mo. 368; 1 Washb. 5.)

¶3The Circuit Court rendered judgment for defendant, and the judgment of the District Court, reversing it, is reversed.

The other judges concur.
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