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99 Mich. 415

Crawford v. Corey

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided March 20, 1894

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1894-03-20

<p>Deed — Presumption of title — Trespass.</p> <p>A conveyance by warranty deed,, by a stranger to the title, of wild and unoccupied land, of which the grantor has never had possession, raises no presumption of title in the grantee.* 1</p>

Relies on Gamble v. Horr · Smith v. Lawrence

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Keversed, · Decided 1894-03-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently March 1959

4 state decisions

101894190019101920193019401950decided

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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• Montgomery, J.

¶1This is an action of trespass. At the trial the plaintiff showed that the lands upon which the alleged trespass was committed were wild and unoccupied, and that no one had ever been in the possession of the-same, except the defendants, while committing the alleged acts of trespass. The plaintiff’s sole evidence of title was in a warranty deed executed by one Edmund Hall and wife to plaintiff on November 13, 1890. The court instructed the jury that this evidence of title was prima facie.

¶2This ruling was erroneous. There was evidently a misapplication of the rule in Gamble v. Horr, 40 Mich. 561, where it was held that a conveyance by one having peaceable possession of the lands is prima facie evidence of title in the grantee. But a conveyance by one having no possession raises no such presumption. Smith v. Lawrence, 12 Mich. 431; Farmers’ & Mechanics’ Bank v. Bronson, 14 Id. 361; Newell v. McLarney, 49 Id. 232.

¶3*417The judgment will be reversed, with costs, and a new trial ordered.

The other Justices concurred.
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