Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/188

152 HARVARD LAW REVIEW attended with the same consequences to him, whether the adverse pos- session be held continuously by one or several persons, and whether sub- sequent possessors do or do not stand in privity with their predecessors." In Illinois Steel Co. v. Budzisz,^^ Marshall, J., discusses with his usual elaboration the requisites of adverse possession, and declares that the letter of the statute only calls for the disseisin or exclusion of the true owner for twenty years, but by judicial construction the requirement that successive possessions be connected by privity has been super-added. It is commonly said to be the reason for the re- quirement of privity that the possession of the disseised owner revives between successive disseisins, and the continuity of possession be- tween the adverse claimants is thereby broken.^^ This reason, however, seems unsound and fictitious.^" The real reason for the requirement, if any, would seem to be that the new entry gives rise to a new right of action against each occupant, rather than that when the first disseisor is interrupted, the interruption, though but for a moment, permits the seisin of the true owner to revest by operation of law.^^ The vital question would seem to be not how long has the owner been out of possession and failed to sue, but, on the other hand, how long has the defendant by himself and his predecessors asserted a consistent claim of title. Privity of estate might, then, be explained as one aspect of the requirement of claim of title, viz., that the holding must be under the same claim of title. In order to be regarded as the same cause of action, it must be connected, consistent, and continuous. If there is a series of independent holdings, one is no evidence in support of the rightfulness of the others. Each is a different claim of title, and new ground of action. The trespasser cannot go further back for the origin of his title than the day of his entry into possession. It is believed that there is very little authority for dispensing with the requirement of privity, and that the cases cited for this by Dean Ames do not go to the full extent supposed. In Doe V. Barnard ^^ it is apparently held that you can tack under •8 106 Wis. 499, 507, 514, 82 N. W. 534 (1900). •' 10 Col. L. Rev. 761; 3 Va. L. Rev. 637; 2 Corpus Juris, 85; Vermont Marble Co. V. Eastman, loi Atl. 151, 164 (Vt.) (1917). " Wishart v. McKnight, 178 Mass. 356, 59 N. E. 757 (1901). " Sherin v. Brackett, 36 Minn. 152, 13 N. W. 551 (1886); Aigler's Cases on Titles, 35, note. « 13 Q. B. 945 (1849).