Thomas W. Hinote, Cindy S. Hinote, Rebecca L. Dowdy, and David H. Dowdy v. Annette Freeman Owens

Summary

The court held that Alabama's common-law 20-year rule of repose did not bar the descendants' action to establish ownership because the competing grantees claimed through a cotenant who could not convey more than his inherited fractional interest. The rule of repose cannot be used to displace superior record title; adverse possession, which the defendants did not argue on appeal, is the applicable method for a cotenant seeking to divest other cotenants of title. Justice Sellers, dissenting, would have applied repose from the recording of the 1964 deed and reversed.