## Facts

- Ralph and Dorothy Carpenter and Lizzie Huffman owned adjoining tracts and disputed a 40-foot-wide strip along the Carpenters’ south line and Huffman’s north line.
- Phil Alexander (Huffman’s brother) purchased a four-acre tract in 1948 (deeded in 1953) that included the strip as it was physically enclosed.
- After receiving his deed, Alexander built a fence where he believed the boundary lay, but the fence was about 40 feet north of the true boundary, enclosing the disputed strip.
- In 1959, Alexander conveyed a half-acre to Huffman using the fence as the parcel’s northern boundary; Huffman built a house, part of which sat on the disputed strip.
- During construction, part of the fence was removed; Huffman built a driveway across the strip and placed a pump in an old fence-post hole.
- Huffman deeded the property back to Alexander in 1968, and Alexander deeded it back to Huffman in 1971.
- When the Carpenters later bought the northern tract, a portion of the fence, the driveway, and the pump were visible; a survey placed the deeded boundary 40 feet south of the old fence and through Huffman’s house.
- Huffman refused to move the house; litigation began in 1974 to establish the boundary and recover the strip.

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient privity of possession existed between Alexander and Huffman to permit tacking their periods of possession to establish adverse possession of the disputed strip.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the trial court’s decree fixing the boundary 40 feet north of the deed line and vesting title to the strip in Huffman by adverse possession.
- The court held there was sufficient privity of possession between Alexander and Huffman to allow tacking of their respective periods of possession.
- Applying the ore tenus standard, the court concluded the trial court’s findings were supported by the evidence and were not plainly and palpably wrong.

## Legal Principles

- Successive adverse possessors may tack periods of possession when privity of possession connects their claims so that possession is continuous.
- Privity for tacking does not require a technically perfect deed description of the disputed area; it is enough that the claim of ownership and possession of the same physically claimed tract is voluntarily transferred.
- In boundary disputes between coterminous owners, adverse possession may ripen without color of title if possession is actual, open, notorious, hostile, exclusive, and continuous for the statutory period.
- In boundary cases tried ore tenus, a trial court’s factual findings are presumed correct on appeal and will be reversed only if plainly and palpably wrong.

## Conclusion

Because Alexander’s fence enclosure and Huffman’s visible, continuous improvements manifested a hostile claim to the strip, and because conveyances between them maintained a continuous connected claim to the same area, Huffman could tack possession and acquire title by adverse possession; the boundary was properly set 40 feet north of the deed line.


Carpenter v. Huffman, 314 So. 2d 65 (Ala. 1975)