Bumgarner v. Corpening

The court charged the jury: “Ordinarily, gentlemen, we have somebody that has an older title and somebody that has been in possession of the land in dispute. In this case, gentlemen, they both go back to a common source of title. They both claim from one of the great-grandfathers, Bumgarner, so neither has an older title than the other, and neither has exercised any possession of it up until the last three or four years and it takes at least seven years to acquire title by possession . . .”

Defendants excepted to the quoted portion of the charge, insisting that the court had misconstrued the…