Massey v. Lewis
| Docket Number: | 2007-CA-01870-COA Linked Case(s): 2007-CA-01870-SCT ; 2007-CA-01870-COA ; 2007-CT-01870-SCT |
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| Court of Appeals: |
Opinion Link Opinion Date: 12-02-2008 Opinion Author: ISHEE, J. Holding: Reversed and Rendered |
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| Additional Case Information: |
Topic: Real property - Validity of tax sale - Reformation of deed - Mutual mistake Judge(s) Concurring: King, C.J., Lee and Myers, P.JJ., Irving, Chandler, Griffis, Barnes, Roberts, and Carlton, JJ. Procedural History: Bench Trial; Declaratory Judgment Nature of the Case: CIVIL - REAL PROPERTY |
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| Trial Court: |
Date of Trial Judgment: 07-18-2007 Appealed from: CHANCERY COURT OF LAUDERDALE COUNTY Judge: Jerry Mason Disposition: DECLARATORY JUDGMENT CONFIRMING TITLE TO REAL PROPERTY IN FAVOR OF APPELLEE Case Number: 05-392-M |
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| Party Name: | Attorney Name: | Brief(s) Available: | ||
| Appellant: | WILL D. MASSEY AND JACKIE M. MASSEY |
DON O. ROGERS |
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| Appellee: | JOE S. LEWIS | MARK A. SCARBOROUGH |
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Synopsis provided by:  If you are interested in subscribing to the weekly synopses of all Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals hand downs please contact Tammy Upton in the MLI Press office. |
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| Topic: | Real property - Validity of tax sale - Reformation of deed - Mutual mistake |
| Summary of the Facts: | Will and Jackie Massey were neighbors of William and Mildred Washington for more than fifty years. The Masseys’ property was aligned along the eastern and southern border of the Washingtons’ property. The legal descriptions that described their respective properties did not overlap but instead shared a common dividing line. In 1992, the Washingtons’ property was sold at a tax sale. The highest bidder was Hot Properties, Inc. After the Washingtons failed to redeem the property within the statutory redemption period, the chancery clerk issued a tax deed to Hot Properties. Subsequently, the Masseys noticed a “for sale” sign on the Washingtons’ property and agreed to purchase the property from Hot Properties for $10,000. A quitclaim deed was executed by Hot Properties in favor of the Masseys. Approximately three weeks after the deed was delivered to them, the Masseys filed a suit to confirm title. The Washingtons objected and asked for the tax sale and tax deed to be held void on the grounds that they did not receive proper notification. In 1996, the parties reached a settlement in which the Masseys agreed to dismiss the suit and execute a quitclaim deed in favor of the Washingtons in exchange for $7,600. After the settlement, the Washingtons and the Masseys continued to occupy the same parcels of land as they did prior to the tax sale. In 2002, the Washingtons conveyed their property to Joe Lewis. Two years later, Lewis employed a surveyor to survey the property. Lewis discovered that an old fence was not located on the dividing line described in the deed. Instead, the fence encroached onto Lewis’s property by 1.33 acres. Lewis and Will attempted to reach a compromise by which Will would agree to move the fence. However, the negotiations fell apart after the surveyor staked off the actual property line, and Will realized that the stakes came a great deal further onto his property than he originally anticipated. Lewis filed a complaint for declaratory judgment and other relief naming the Masseys as defendants. The chancellor held that, though the Masseys had originally acquired title to the hatched area by adverse possession, they relinquished that title when they reconveyed the property back to the Washingtons by way of the 1996 quitclaim deed. The chancellor confirmed the title to Lewis’s property to include the hatched area. The Masseys appeal. |
| Summary of Opinion Analysis: | Issue 1: Tax sale The Masseys argue that the tax sale was void due to improper notice; therefore, no legal interest in the hatched area was conveyed by virtue of the sale. Their assertion that the tax sale was void is based solely on the Washingtons’ claim in the 1995 confirmation suit that they failed to receive proper notice of the sale. However, because the Masseys and Washingtons subsequently settled the suit, the validity of the tax sale was never adjudicated by the court. The Masseys have offered no other evidence sufficient to suggest that the tax sale was void. Therefore, the chancellor was correct in his presumption that the tax sale was valid. The Masseys also argue that even if the tax sale was valid, it did not serve as an interruption to the Masseys’ adverse possession claim to the property. The Masseys’ intent is largely irrelevant with regard to the effect that the tax sale had on adverse possession. In addition, adverse possession cannot operate to vest title while a municipality holds the tax title to the land in question. Regardless of the extent and quality of the Masseys’ adverse possession, they relinquished their claim when they allowed the hatched area to be sold at the tax sale as part of the Washingtons’ property. The Masseys had to reestablish their adverse possession claim of the hatched area at the point the property reverted back to the Washingtons. Given that only eight years had passed between the reconveyance and Lewis’s filing of this action, the Masseys’ title to the hatched area had not ripened by adverse possession. Issue 2: Reformation of deed The Masseys argue that the 1996 quitclaim deed should have been reformed to reflect the intentions and expectations of the parties and that the purpose of the settlement was to return to the Washingtons what they lost at the tax sale. In construing deeds, the court’s purpose is to reflect the intentions of the parties, stating that it is not always the description of the property that the parties intend to write but rather the property the parties intended to include in the description that controls. Although the Masseys technically conveyed their interest in the hatched area by way of the 1996 quitclaim deed, that conveyance was clearly based on a mutual mistake between the Masseys and the Washingtons. The mistake was not in the deed description, having used the same legal description that had always been used to describe the Washingtons’ property. Instead, the mistake was in what the deed description included. It is clear from the record that both the Masseys and the Washingtons believed that the deed description set the old fence line as the dividing line between their properties. Both Will and Washington testified that prior to 2004, no survey had ever been conducted on the property. Instead, they operated under the mistaken assumption that the old fence was the proper boundary line. It is also clear from the record that based on their mistaken belief as to the property line, the Masseys and the Washingtons believed the hatched area was part of the Masseys’ property; therefore, they never intended to include it in the deed description. This is reflected by the fact that during the fifty-year period that the Masseys adversely possessed the property, the Masseys had constructed and operated a barn, shop, and an equipment shed on the hatched area without an objection from the Washingtons. After the deed was conveyed, both the Masseys and the Washingtons went back to occupying their respective properties as they had done before the tax sale. The Masseys’ possession and ownership of the hatched area was not challenged until Lewis’s survey was conducted eight years later. Accordingly, the evidence demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that the Masseys’ conveyance of the hatched area to the Washingtons was based on a mutual mistake in the deed description. Therefore, the mistake in description in the deed should be reformed to coincide with the description of the property intended to be conveyed. The chancellor erred by not reforming the deed to reflect the Masseys’ and the Washingtons’ intentions. |
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