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Ferriter v. Bartmess
Montana Supreme Court
281 Mont. 100, 931 P.2d 709 (1997)
Facts
A 1943 deed granted most of a large plat-mapped quarter-section of land to a grantee. The grantors reserved for themselves a small 250-feet-square portion of the parcel, on which sat their dance hall. The deed identified the reserved lot as being located at the southwest corner of the larger conveyance. The deed also identified the reserved lot as being bounded on two sides by a highway intersection. These two descriptions were mutually incompatible because they did not describe the same lot. Moreover, the deed did not make clear whether the highway intersection referred to the edge of the roads or to the edge of their rights-of-way, and it was impossible to determine where any of those edges existed in 1943. The modern owners of the two lots were Donald and Sharon Ferriter (plaintiffs) and Bob and Patricia Bartmess (defendants). The Ferriters, who would benefit from confining the reserved lot to the small southwest corner of the Ferriters’ larger parcel, sued the Bartmesses to quiet title. The trial court granted summary judgment for the Ferriters. The Bartmesses appealed to the Montana Supreme Court.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Turnage, C.J.)
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