## Facts

- Eugene and Grace Porter (Porters) and Donald and Edna Posey (Poseys) owned adjoining parcels in Franklin County, Missouri, and disputed ownership of a 0.18-acre tract used as a turnaround area.
- The Poseys purchased their parcel in October 1975 from Elsie Mae Kapp; their record description included the 0.18-acre tract.
- Grace Porter’s parents, the Engelmeyers, acquired the neighboring land in three parcels between 1955 and 1956.
- Soon after buying their land, the Engelmeyers cleared the disputed 0.18-acre tract with a bulldozer and built and graveled a turnaround roadway on it.
- For years afterward, the Engelmeyers openly maintained and used the turnaround and surrounding area as part of their property, including for access to the rest of their land, overflow parking, and recreation (including volleyball).
- Passing motorists occasionally used the turnaround to reenter the highway, but the record contained no evidence that the Poseys’ predecessors used the tract or that the Engelmeyers’ use was by permission of the record owners.
- In October 1975, the Poseys had their property surveyed and learned the 0.18-acre tract fell within their deed description.
- In July 1976, the Engelmeyers sold their property to the Porters. The deed did not describe the 0.18-acre tract, but the Engelmeyers believed they owned it and intended to convey the property as they had possessed it.
- Eugene Porter learned shortly before closing that the tract was not described in the deed, but his attorney told him the omission would not prevent transfer of the tract to the Porters.
- After the sale, Posey installed a cable to block the Porters from using the turnaround, and the Porters filed a quiet-title action claiming ownership through their predecessors’ adverse possession.

## Issues

1. Did the Engelmeyers’ bulldozing, construction, maintenance, and long-term use of the 0.18-acre tract satisfy Missouri’s elements of adverse possession for the statutory period?
2. If the Engelmeyers acquired title by adverse possession, could that title pass to the Porters even though the deed to the Porters omitted a legal description of the 0.18-acre tract?

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decree quieting title to the 0.18-acre tract in the Porters.
- The court held the Engelmeyers’ use of the tract for well over ten years was actual, open and notorious, hostile, exclusive, and continuous, so title vested in the Engelmeyers by adverse possession.
- The court rejected the claim that occasional use by passing motorists defeated exclusivity because such incidental use did not amount to possession under a claim of right that displaced the Engelmeyers’ dominion.
- The court held the Porters could claim the benefit of the Engelmeyers’ adverse-possession title even though the tract was omitted from the deed, because the Engelmeyers intended to transfer what they had possessed and delivered possession as part of the sale.
- The court concluded the Porters, as successors to the Engelmeyers’ possessory title and possession, were entitled to quiet title against the Poseys’ record claim.

## Legal Principles

- In Missouri, adverse possession requires proof that possession was actual, open and notorious, exclusive, hostile, and continuous for the statutory period (ten years).
- “Hostile” possession does not require animosity; it means the claimant occupies the land intending to hold it as an owner and not in recognition of another’s superior title.
- Acts such as clearing land, building and maintaining improvements, and using the area in an owner-like manner may satisfy multiple adverse-possession elements at once.
- Exclusivity does not require keeping out all members of the public at all times; incidental use by third parties (such as motorists turning around) does not defeat exclusivity when the claimant otherwise exercises dominion as an owner.
- A title obtained by adverse possession may be transferred to a successor even if the deed does not describe the disputed tract, so long as the grantor intends to convey the possessed land and the grantee takes possession in connection with the conveyance.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed judgment for the Porters because the Engelmeyers had openly cleared, improved, maintained, and used the disputed 0.18-acre tract as their own for more than ten years, satisfying Missouri’s adverse-possession requirements, and their intent to convey the possessed land together with delivery of possession allowed that possessory title to pass to the Porters despite the tract’s omission from the deed.


Porter v. Posey, 592 S.W.2d 844 (Mo. App. 1979)