Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/191

155 TITLE BY ADVERSE POSSESSION 155 possession, in order that one may be the beneficiary of the prior possession of another; and one who does not claim through or under another may not rely on his possession. ^^ Wishart v. McKnight ^^ is a leading Massachusetts case holding there may be privity by deUvery which would have warranted the finding that the posses- sion of each holder had been really transferred to his grantee, al- though not included in the description of the deeds. It stands for the proposition that "where possession has been actually and in each instance,, transferred by the one in possession to his successor, the owner of the record title is barred." In North Carolina ^^ it was formerly held that privity of estate was not required to be shown between different occupants in order to presume a grant from the state, where land had been in adverse use and occupation for thirty years. This rule has now been changed by statute.^^ In Tennessee the presumption that the state has parted with its title after the statutory period of twenty years' continuous possession is still made without a showing of privity.^® But successive adverse possessions cannot aid each other under the statute of limitations against a private owner unless they are connected by contract or some form of legal privity. Each subsequent possession not so connected takes a new start unaided by the prior possession.^** A discussion of the requirement of privity on principle would seem necessarily to involve the inquiry whether the entry of each successive holder gives rise to a new right of action. For instance, A may have held possession for a few days or years, without a shadow of right, when B, another intruder, expels him and holds for the balance of the statutory period, but not claiming under him. When does the right of action against B, the second disseisor, accrue: at the time that A dispossessed the owner and began to withhold possession from him wrongfully and adversely, or at the time of the entry of B? Is the owner's right of entry against A and B the same cause of action? ^ Ferriday :;. Grosvenor, 86 Conn. 698, 86 Atl. 569 (1913). » 178 Mass. 356, 59 N. E. 757 (1901). " See Davis v. McArthur, 78 N. C. 357 (1878); Cowles v. Hall, supra, 90 N. C. 330 (1884). •" Ferguson v. Prince, 136 Tenn. 543, 190 S. W. 548 (1916).
 * May V. Manufacturing Co., 164 N. C. 262; 80 S. E. 380 (1913).
 * ' Scales V. Cockerill, 3 Head (40 Tenn.) 432 (1859).