Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

60 Ala. 579

Eakin v. Brewer

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1877

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1877-12-15

<p> Statutory Action in Nature of Ejectment. </p> <p>1. W hat title loill support action. —Prior possession for several years, accompanied with, tke erection of valuable improvements, and other acts of ownership, raises a presumption of title, which, in the absence of proof of an outstanding title in a third person, will support an ejectment against a mere trespasser.</p>

Relies on Hendon v. White · Badger v. Lyon · McCall v. Doe ex dem. Pryor

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently July 1908

3 state decisions

101877188018901900decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

STONE, J.

¶1The three affirmative charges given by the court, and excepted to, each and all assert, substantially, the same legal proposition. We think each mistook the law. The possession by Wallace from 1858-9 to 1862-3, the valuable improvements put on the lot by him, and his acts of ownership, raised the presumption of title in him at that time, which, in the absence of proof of outstanding title in another, would support or defend an action of ejectment. See Heydenfeldt v. Mitchell, 6 Ala. 70; Badger v. Lyon, 7 Ala. 564; McCall v. Pryor, 17 Ala. 533. Hendon v. White, 52 Ala. 597, was not intended to unsettle this principle. See, also, Clarke v. Clarke, 51 Ala. 498.

¶2We have no evidence of any other possession of the land in controversy, until 1869, when the defendant went into possession, and has retained it ever since ; but he shows no title. Plaintiff, as one of the firm of Eakin & Co., claims title *582under a levy of attachment in favor of his firm in 1867, on the lot in controversy, judgment obtained in the cause in 1869, sale by the sheriff and purchase by him in 1871, and the present suit brought in 1872. Under these facts, the presumption of title in Wallace is not overcome.—Anderson v. Melear, at December term, 1876.

¶3Reversed and remanded.

Bbickell, C. J., not sitting, having been of counsel.
/60/ala/579 · .json · Public domain