Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/194

158 HARVARD LAW REVIEW It may be admitted that it does not necessarily follow, that because the legislature has said that no action shall be brought against A unless within twenty years after the cause of action accrues, that therefore B cannot be sued in respect to an entry or conversion made by him within twenty years. It may be difficult to show that there is not a new cause of action against B, even though his entry is by consent of A. In the case of chattels it would seem to be a new conversion.^^ Barring a right of action against B is not necessarily the result of a statute barring a right of action against A. But the statute ought to receive "such a construction as will effectuate the beneficent objects which it is intended to accom- plish, — the security of titles and the quieting of possessions." ^"^ Tacking may, if necessary, be explained as a common-law doctrine, a limitation by analogy, because to hold otherwise would be con- trary to the policy of the statute and would prevent an adverse holder from transmitting to another the benefit of his prior holding. Where the same claim of title has been consistently asserted for the statutory period by persons in privity with each other, there is the same reason to quiet and establish the title as where one person has held. The same flag has been kept flying for the whole period. It is the same ouster and disseisin. If the statute runs, it quiets a title which has been consistently asserted and exercised as against the true owner, and the possession of the prior holder justly enures to the benefit of the last. If, on the other hand, the statute runs without privity, then the first holder will have the better title among the successive holders because of his prior possession, though he may have held only a day. The relative priority of the inchoate titles will remain imaffected by the extinguishment of the true owner's right. Title will thus vest successively in the different holders, and only when all the prior holders are barred will the last possessor gain an in- defeasible title to the land.^°^ It seems unreasonable that either the prior or subsequent independent holders should benefit by each others' adverse possession. As a broad question of legislative policy, however, it may perhaps be advisable to bar stale demands without requiring proof of privity of estate between successive holders. 99 MiUer v. Dell, [1891] i Q. B. 468. loo Willison v. Watkins, 3 Pet. (U. S.) 43, 54 (1830). "' Dart, Vendor and Pxjrchaser, 7 ed., 475; 2 Preston, Abstracts, 293.