Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/183

147 TITLE BY ADVERSE POSSESSION i4? accrued.*^ But this is something that the courts have done in limiting equitable actions by analogy to the statute of limitations on ejectment; and if poUcy demands it, a reciprocal hmitation of legal actions by analogy would seem equally justifiable. Opinions may differ as to the justice of such extension of the doctrine of adverse possession, but it would have the beneficent effect of bringing up for settlement disputed questions of title before they become stale, and would obviate one of the most serious defects in this automatic method of quieting titles against possible adverse claims which now arises from our imdue tenderness towards the holders of future interests. II Privity and Tacking Between Successive Holders It is the almost universal rule of law as laid down by decisions in this country that "privity of estate" is necessary between suc- cessive adverse holders to authorize "tacking" their several pos- sessions together.^^ The several occupancies must be so connected that each occupant can go back to the original entry or holding as a source of title. The successive occupants must claim through and under their predecessors and not independently to make a continuous holding united into one ground of action. It is gener- ally held that this connection may be established by any of the usual methods of transferring title, voluntary or involuntary, and also by the mere informal dehvery of possession by mutual consent. There is privity between ancestor and heir, testator and devisee, vendor and vendee, lessor and lessee, judgment debtor and execu- tion purchaser.^" Privity is not presumed. The burden of proving privity is on the one claiming by adverse possession.^^ In the absence of formal transfer of title, some difficulty may " 2 Minn. L. Rev. 137. Wood on Lim., 4 ed., § 271; Ely v. Brown, 183 111. 575, 597, 56 N. E. 181 (1900); Davock V. Nealon, 58 N. J. L. 21, 32 Atl. 675 (1893). Ames, Lectures on Legal Hist., 203, 204. In South Carolina tacking is allowed only between ancestor and heir. Lewis v. Pope, 86 S. C. 285, 68 S. E. 680 (1910); Mazyck v. Wight, 2 Brev. (S. C.) 151, 153 (1807). " Doe V. Brown, 4 Ind. 143 (1853); Ryan v. Schwartz, 94 Wis. 403, 69 N. W. 178 (1896).
 * » 2 Corpus Juris, 84-90; Buswell, Limitation and Adverse Possession, § 239;
 * " Overfield v. Christie, 7 S. & R. (Pa.) 173 (1821); 2 Corpus Juris, 85-90;