## Facts

- Thomas Anderson died in 1800; his will authorized executors to sell his real estate, and a land patent later issued to the executors.
- Sarah Lewis bought the disputed land through the executors in an earlier transaction, entered into possession, made improvements, and remained in peaceable possession until her death in 1835.
- Elizabeth Cobbs was an heir of Sarah Lewis; the plaintiffs claimed possession through Cobbs (as her lessees/claimants).
- There was no direct evidence of continuous physical occupation by Lewis’s heirs after Lewis’s death.
- Around 1842, William H. Tapscott entered onto the land without any claim of title and later attempted to obtain a patent in his own name.
- The dispute was between parties lacking clear record title; the practical controversy was which party had the better right to possession.

## Issues

1. Whether prior peaceable possession, without proof of perfect title, is sufficient to recover in ejectment against a later entrant who is a mere intruder without title.
2. Whether a defendant with no title can defeat ejectment by showing the plaintiff’s title is defective or that title is in a third person.
3. Whether, when a person dies in possession, the law presumes the heirs continue in possession absent proof of abandonment or interruption.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed judgment for the plaintiffs.
- Prior peaceable possession through Sarah Lewis, carried forward to her heirs, was sufficient to support ejectment against Tapscott as a later intruder without title.
- Tapscott could not defeat recovery by pointing to defects in the plaintiffs’ title or by asserting that true title might be in someone else.

## Legal Principles

- As between non-owners, prior peaceable possession prevails over a later possession obtained by intrusion without title or authority.
- In ejectment, a defendant who is a stranger without title cannot rely solely on alleged defects in the plaintiff’s title or on outstanding title in a third party to justify continued possession.
- When a person dies in possession, heirs are presumed to succeed to that possession unless there is affirmative evidence of abandonment or interruption; this constructive possession can support ejectment against a subsequent trespasser.
- Prior possession functions as prima facie right to possession against a wrongdoer, reflecting the law’s protection of stability in possession and disfavor of dispossession by self-help.

## Conclusion

The court held that the plaintiffs could recover possession based on Sarah Lewis’s prior peaceable possession and the presumption that her heirs continued that possession, and that a later intruder without title could not defeat ejectment by invoking possible third-party ownership or defects in the plaintiffs’ record title.


Tapscott v. Lessee of Cobbs, 52 Va. 172 (1854)