1148 Davol Street LLC v. Mechanic’s Mill One LLC

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us   13-P-1985                                  Appeals Court   1148 DAVOL STREET LLC.  vs.  MECHANIC’S MILL ONE LLC. No. 13-P-1985. Bristol.     September 4, 2014. – December 12, 2014.   Present:  Cohen, Meade, & Milkey, JJ. Adverse Possession and Prescription.  Municipal Corporations, Adverse possession.  Real Property, Adverse possession.       Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on April 8, 2008.   The case was heard by Renée P. Dupuis, J.     Arthur D. Frank, Jr., for the defendant. John M. Sahady for the plaintiff.     MILKEY, J.  At issue in this appeal is the ownership of a strip of land in Fall River.  The defendant was the record owner of the disputed property, which the plaintiff claimed based on adverse possession.  The parties agree that the nature and length of the plaintiff’s use of the land generally was sufficient to establish title by adverse possession.  The only contested issue is one of law:  whether the plaintiff may count the time during which title to the land was held by one of the defendant’s predecessors-in-title, the city of Fall River (city), toward the requisite twenty-year period of continuous adverse use.  Relying on G. L. c. 260, § 31, the defendant argues that the plaintiff’s adverse possession claim did not begin to run until the city transferred the property to a private party.  In a thoughtful decision issued after a trial on stipulated facts, a Superior Court judge rejected this argument as a matter of law.  She ruled that a private record owner of once-public land opposing an adverse possession claim cannot invoke G. L. c. 260, § 31, as a defense.  We agree and therefore affirm. 1.  Background.  By 1975, the city of Fall River had acquired a parcel of land located at 1082 Davol Street in Fall River (Mechanic’s Mill parcel).[1]  The property included “a large building [that] had been used for manufacturing purposes.”    The record does not reveal what actual use the city itself made of the parcel, but the parties stipulated that the city “held” the property “for a public purpose as defined in Chapter 260, Section 31 of the General Laws.”  In 1989, the city sold the Mechanic’s Mill parcel to a private corporation.  Since then, the property has continued in private ownership, and it is now owned by defendant Mechanic’s Mill One LLC (record owner). In 1975, Paul and Albert […]

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