{
  "id": 1642549,
  "name": "Harris v. Harris",
  "name_abbreviation": "Harris v. Harris",
  "decision_date": "1956-01-09",
  "docket_number": "5-824",
  "first_page": "789",
  "last_page": "791",
  "citations": [
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      "type": "official",
      "cite": "225 Ark. 789"
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    {
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      "cite": "285 S.W.2d 513"
    }
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  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ark.",
    "id": 8808,
    "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court"
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    "name_long": "Arkansas",
    "name": "Ark."
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      "cite": "44 Ark. 79",
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      "reporter": "S.W.",
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    {
      "cite": "113 Ark. 433",
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      "cite": "220 Ark. 10",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ark.",
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        1660122
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  "analysis": {
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:45:58.446055+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Harris v. Harris."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "George Rose Smith, J.\nBy this suit the appellant, Tom Harris, who has record title to an undivided seven-eighths interest in the forty-acre tract in controversy, seeks to quiet his title to the whole as against his brother John, the appellee, who is the apparent owner of the other one-eighth interest. The chancellor rejected Tom\u2019s claim of complete ownership and granted John\u2019s request for partition, the decree correctly directing that John\u2019s share be allotted to him from the unimproved portion of the property.\nThese litigants and the other six children of R. P. Harris, inherited this tract, then unimproved, from their father. In 1933 Tom obtained from his seven brothers and sisters a written contract by which he agreed to purchase their interest in the land for $140, the money to be paid a year later. Tom immediately took possession of the land, built a house and other improvements thereon, and has lived on the property ever since. In 1937 the other six children executed a deed to Tom, but John refused to join in the conveyance and told Tom that he was claiming his interest as an heir.\nIn the trial court the appellant seems to have contended that he had acquired John\u2019s one-eighth interest by adverse possession. The proof does not support this contention. In order for the possession of a tenant in common to be adverse to his cotenant knowledge of the hostile claim must be brought home to the cotenant, either directly or by acts so notorious that notice may be presumed. Smith v. Kappler, 220 Ark. 10, 245 S. W. 2d 809. Here it is doubtful if Tom intended to hold adversely to John, but even if he did the evidence falls short of showing that the required notice of a hostile claim was ever brought home to John.\nIn this court the appellant has abandoned his assertion of adverse possession and insists instead that the chancellor should have granted specific performance of the contract that John signed in 1933. Assuming that the record permits this question to be raised by the appellant, we find the contention to be without merit.\nIt is argued in the brief that Tom paid John his share of the purchase money, but the weight of the evidence is to the contrary. Tom did not testify that the money was ever paid to John; he merely says in substance that he was willing to offset the purchase money against a debt which he testified was owed to him by his brother. But John says that the debt had already been paid and that his reason for not signing the deed was Tom\u2019s failure to make payment. In our opinion John\u2019s point-blank refusal to execute the deed persuasively corroborates his version of the transaction.\nIn these circumstances the appellant has been guilty of laches in delaying the assertion of his claim for some seventeen years. He relies strongly upon cases like Hargis v. Edrington, 113 Ark. 433, 168 S. W. 1095, where it was said that \u201ca vendee in possession is not barred from suing for specific performance by delay for any period in bringing his action, his possession being the continuous assertion of his claim. He may rest in security until his title or right of possession is attacked.\u201d In the cases cited, however, the vendee\u2019s only claim to the land lay in his contract of purchase; his possession was therefore unequivocally referable to that contract.\nHere the situation is different. Inasmuch as Tom has been through the years a tenant in common owning a seven-eighths interest in the land his possession cannot be attributed solely to his executory agreement to buy J ohn\u2019s one-eighth. More nearly in point than the cases cited by the appellant is the holding in Haines v. McGlone, 44 Ark. 79, where a tenant in common relied upon his possession as part performance of an oral contract for the purchase of his cotenant\u2019s interest. \"We held that since the possession could not be referred exclusively to the contract it failed to satisfy the statute of frauds. For the same reason Tom\u2019s possession, already rightful, cannot be regarded as such an assertion of his rights under the contract as to absolve him from the charge of laches. It was incumbent upon Tom to assert his claim promptly when his brother unqualifiedly refused to honor the agreement in 1937.\nAffirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "George Rose Smith, J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Bailey, Warren \u00e9 Bullion, for appellant.",
      "John L. Hughes, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "Harris v. Harris.\n5-824\n285 S. W. 2d 513\nOpinion delivered January 9, 1956.\nBailey, Warren \u00e9 Bullion, for appellant.\nJohn L. Hughes, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0789-01",
  "first_page_order": 811,
  "last_page_order": 813
}