Copper v. Ringen

671 S.W.3d 409

Charles E. COPPER Jr. and Anita J. Copper, Appellants,

v.Minter D. RINGEN and Diane E. Ringen, as Co-Trustees of the Minter D. Ringen and Diane E. Ringen Family Trust, U/A Dated March 25, 2021, Respondents.

WD 85620

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

OPINION FILED: June 27, 2023

Kevin Adam Sommer, Warrensburg, MO, for appellant.

John Henry Edmiston, Warrensburg, MO, for respondent.

Before Division Three: Janet Sutton, Presiding Judge, Cynthia L. Martin, Judge, and Edward R. Ardini, Jr., Judge

Cynthia L. Martin, Judge

Charles E. Copper ("Mr. Copper") and Anita J. Copper ("Mrs. Copper") (collectively, "the Coppers") appeal the trial court's judgment in favor of Minter D. Ringen ("Mr. Ringen") and Diane E. Ringen ("Mrs. Ringen") (collectively, "the Ringens") on the Coppers ’ petition for quiet title by adverse possession and on the Ringens’ counterclaim for ejectment. Finding no error, we affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background¹

In 1990, Mr. Ringen approached Michael Wutke ("Wutke"), a friend who owned and lived on thirty-five acres of rural land outside of Knob Noster in Johnson County, Missouri, about purchasing a portion of his property. Mr. Ringen and Wutke reached an agreement for the sale of 5.4 acres located in the southwest corner of Wutke's thirty-five-acre tract. A survey was obtained that legally described the 5.4-acre tract, and a conveyance deed was signed and recorded in 1990. Shortly thereafter, Wutke erected a boundary fence which ran north to south along the eastern boundary of the land sold to the Ringens. The Ringens built a home on their 5.4-acre tract.

In 1998, the Coppers expressed interest in purchasing the remaining property owned by Wutke. However, they were unable to obtain a loan in the amount Wutke desired. Wutke proposed selling a portion of his remaining land to the Ringens to reduce the acreage to be sold to the Coppers. The Ringens and the Coppers were receptive to this idea, which contemplated increasing the size of the Ringens’ parcel to approximately ten acres, while selling the remaining acreage including Wutke's house, (approximately twenty-five acres) to the Coppers.

Wutke "measured north the amount of feet it would take to square off a little under five acres" to add to the Ringens’ 5.4-acre tract. He arranged for a surveyor to memorialize his measurements, resulting in a 4.59-acre tract situated immediately north of the Ringens’ existing tract. Wutke informed the Coppers that he was having the property he intended to sell to the Ringens surveyed so that there would be "corner points and boundary markers."

While Mr. Copper was overseas, Wutke walked the property he intended to sell to the Coppers with Mrs. Copper. Wutke showed Mrs. Copper most of the property boundaries, except for a portion of the boundary for the 4.59-acre parcel he intended to sell to the Ringens. Heavy brush and precipitation made it difficult to reach this boundary, though Wutke offered to walk Mrs. Copper to the boundary. Mrs. Copper declined. Wutke informed Mrs. Copper that the contemplated property boundaries for the additional parcel he intended to sell the Ringens would be surveyed and there would be "good survey markers there before we close." Mrs. Copper advised that they could look at the boundary lines after the survey. Wutke also showed Mrs. Copper the fence he had built along the east line of the Ringens’ original 5.4-acre tract, and explained, "this fence over here is [the Ringens’] property boundary between us."

On May 28, 1998, Wutke and the Coppers signed a contract for the sale of thirty-five acres, "less 10 acres more or less in the Southwest corner. (Pending Survey.)". On June 24, 1998, Whitehead & Associates prepared a survey of the additional 4.59 acres which was to be sold to the Ringens. That survey was delivered to the bank prior to the Coppers closing on their purchase from Wutke on June 30, 1998. The survey identified the 4.59-acre tract that Wutke intended to sell to the Ringens. That tract, along with the Ringens original 5.4-acre tract, was intended as the 10 acres to be excluded from the description of the land being conveyed by Wutke to the Coppers. The Coppers moved into Wutke's house on July 21, 1998.

The additional 4.59-acre tract reflected in the survey was sold by Wutke to the Ringens on August 11, 1998. The 4.59-acre tract is contiguous to and immediately north of the Ringens’ original 5.4-acre tract purchased in 1990. The tracts purchased by the Ringens combine to form an "L" shape, as the width of the 4.59-acre tract is narrower than the width of the 5.4-acre tract. The Coppers ’ twenty-five-acre tract lies to the east and north of the boundaries of the Ringens’ contiguous tracts.

The Ringens’ tracts are heavily wooded, though both tracts have pockets of pasture. One pocket of pasture lies in the northwest corner of the 4.59-acre tract purchased by the Ringens in 1998. Another pocket of pasture lies along the eastern boundary of the 5.4-acre tract purchased by the Ringens in 1990, and thus immediately west of the boundary fence Wutke erected in 1990.

The Coppers claim that between 1998 through 2020, they mowed and baled hay on these pockets of pasture in order to feed their horses. They did so until September, 2020, when the Ringens told the Coppers to remove hay bales, old vehicles and trailers the Coppers had placed on the pastures.

On November 4, 2020, the Coppers filed a petition against the Ringens for quiet title by adverse possession in the Circuit Court of Johnson County, Missouri. They claimed to have taken title by adverse possession to two tracts (the "disputed parcels"). The first tract is a rectangular-shaped parcel along the Ringens’ side of the boundary fence built by Wutke in 1990 on the eastern line of the Ringens’ 5.4-acre tract ("front parcel"). The front parcel includes a pocket of pasture and a substantial wooded area on the north, west, and south sides of the pasture. The east side of the pasture is contiguous to pasture owned by the Coppers that lies to the east of the boundary fence. The second tract is a square-shaped parcel in the northwest corner of the Ringens’ 4.59-acre tract. ("back parcel"). The back parcel is primarily pasture, with woods on the west, south, and east sides of the pasture. The north side of the pasture is contiguous to pasture owned by the Coppers. The Coppers ’ petition did not include a legal description for either of the disputed parcels, and instead attached two "Google Earth" aerial photographs with added "lines" to demark the purported boundaries of the disputed parcels.

During a bench trial on June 23, 2022, the Ringens testified that in August or September, 1998, they invited their new neighbors, the Coppers, over to their home to eat chocolate cake so they could get to know one another. Mr. Ringen recalled:

That's when we told them, well, we've got these two parcels of land and there's an open area and there's another one there, and you have four horses. It would be okay with us if you want to bale the hay off of each of those two and you can continue to do that year after year without asking.

The Coppers claimed that this conversation never occurred. Instead, Mrs. Copper testified that "two or three years after" they purchased their land in 1998 and began cultivating the two pastures, Mr. Ringen told her that the front parcel looked nice after the Coppers removed the hay, and gave the Coppers permission to continue mowing the hay on that parcel. Mrs. Copper testified at trial that at the time of this conversation, she did not know for sure who owned the front parcel, but that she did not question Mr. Ringen's claim of ownership.

Mr. Copper testified that he mowed and baled the hay on the disputed parcels every summer from 2000 to 2020. Mr. Ringen acknowledged that Mr. Copper baled the hay "maybe not every year, but yes, mostly." Mr. Copper claimed that he also maintained the rest of the disputed parcels by weed eating along the edges of the wooded areas, as well as clearing dead limbs and trees. Mr. Ringen testified that he never saw the Coppers in the wooded areas of either of the disputed parcels until 2020, and that there were never signs of any type of routine maintenance or upkeep other than the mowing and removal of hay in the two pastures consistent with the permission he had given the Coppers.

The Coppers testified that in 1998 when they purchased their property, they did not know where their property boundaries were, and that they still do not know where their property boundaries lie. Mr. Copper acknowledged that he knew some of Wutke's remaining land was being sold to the Ringens in 1998 in order to render affordable the property being purchased by the Coppers. However, Mr. Copper testified that "no one ever gave [him] a survey of those acres [or] ever told [him] what the acres were." Mr. Copper acknowledged that he never followed up with the Ringens or Wutke to determine the boundaries of the land owned by the Ringens. Instead, Mr. Copper testified that after he and Mrs. Copper purchased land from Wutke, he baled hay from the two disputed parcels, believing them to be a part of his property "because nobody stopped me." Mr. Copper denied that the fence Wutke built in 1990 was ever used as a boundary fence between the Coppers ’ land and the Ringens’ land, and instead testified that he used the fence to keep his horses enclosed. Mr. Copper testified that he still does not know how many acres he and Mrs. Copper own.

The Ringens presented testimony from Mark Holt ("Holt"), a licensed professional surveyor, who testified to the accuracy of the surveys of the Ringens’ land which were prepared in 1990 and 1998. Holt located all existing monuments for those surveys, and he also identified markers on the property lines between the Ringens’ and the Coppers ’ land, on the Ringens’ property corners, and along the Ringens’ northern property line. Holt testified that all of the corners he located...