## Facts

- The Thomas family owned a rural tract in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, and for decades possessed and used an adjacent parcel that lay outside their titled property.
- The disputed parcel was largely wild and undeveloped and could be reached only by boat or by traveling over the Thomases’ property; it was bounded by surrounding water and swamp features and adjoined the Thomases’ land.
- Beginning around 1957, the Thomases and their predecessor (including Jack J. Thomas) used the disputed parcel in owner-like ways, including operating a sand-and-gravel business, fishing and recreating, and running a campground with related improvements and maintenance.
- In 1997, Robert and Deborah Hogan, through their corporation Secret Cove, L.L.C., purchased a 216-acre tract. The purchase gave Secret Cove record title to the disputed parcel.
- After the purchase, Secret Cove demanded that the current Thomas owners, George and Audrey Thomas, vacate the disputed parcel; they refused.
- Secret Cove filed a petitory action seeking recognition of its ownership and possession of the disputed property, plus damages for trespass and lost revenues.
- The Thomases answered and reconvened, asserting they had acquired ownership through thirty-year acquisitive prescription based on their family’s continuous, open possession dating back to about 1957, including tacking predecessor possession.
- At trial, the parties stipulated that Secret Cove had valid record title, leaving the case to turn on whether the Thomases proved acquisitive prescription (including the area possessed and the existence of visible boundaries).
- The trial court ruled for the Thomases, finding they had possessed the disputed property for thirty years with intent to own, within specified visible boundaries, and that Jack J. Thomas’s possession could be tacked to George Thomas’s possession.
- Secret Cove appealed, challenging the findings on the nature and extent of possession, visible boundaries, tacking, witness credibility, and a mismatch between the court’s reasons and the written judgment’s eastern boundary description.

## Issues

1. Whether the Thomases proved thirty years of continuous, public, peaceful, and unequivocal possession as owners sufficient to acquire the disputed immovable property by acquisitive prescription.
2. Whether the Thomases could tack their possession to their predecessor’s possession to satisfy the thirty-year period.
3. Whether the trial court was manifestly erroneous in finding the Thomases possessed the property within recognizable visible boundaries and in fixing the extent of the prescriptive acquisition.
4. Whether the written judgment’s description of the eastern boundary had to be vacated and corrected to match the trial court’s factual findings.

## Decision

- The court of appeal affirmed the trial court’s determination that the Thomases acquired ownership of the disputed property by thirty-year acquisitive prescription.
- The court held that the trial court’s findings on the Thomases’ continuous and open corporeal possession, intent to possess as owners, and the extent of possession within visible boundaries were supported by the record and were not clearly wrong under manifest error review.
- The court agreed that the Thomases could tack Jack J. Thomas’s possession (beginning around 1957) to the current owners’ possession to reach the prescriptive period.
- The court vacated the portion of the judgment containing an erroneous or inconsistent description of the eastern boundary and remanded for amendment of the judgment so the legal description would conform to the trial court’s findings.

## Legal Principles

- A petitory action is the procedural vehicle by which a person claiming ownership of immovable property, but not in possession, seeks judgment recognizing ownership against a possessor who claims ownership; once the plaintiff’s title is established or stipulated, the possessor may defeat the claim by proving acquisitive prescription.
- Thirty-year acquisitive prescription of immovables requires proof of possession for thirty years that is continuous and uninterrupted, peaceable, public, and unequivocal, with intent to possess as owner; just title and good faith are not required. (La. Civ. Code art. 3486)
- In boundary-related prescription disputes, the possessor must show the area possessed and the limits of that possession; possession may extend to visible boundaries when the facts show possession up to those physical limits. (La. Civ. Code art. 794)
- Tacking is allowed when possession is transferred by a juridical link (such as inheritance) and possession is continuous, so successive possessors’ time in possession may be combined to meet the prescriptive period. (La. Civ. Code arts. 3441–3442)
- Findings about the character and extent of possession, visible boundaries, and witness credibility are factual determinations reviewed under the manifest error/clearly wrong standard.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit upheld the Thomases’ ownership by thirty-year acquisitive prescription because the trial court reasonably found continuous, open, owner-like possession within visible boundaries over a period met through tacking from predecessor to successor; however, it vacated the judgment’s inconsistent eastern boundary description and remanded for correction.


Secret Cove, L.L.C. v. Thomas, 862 So. 2d 1010 (2003)