Application of the doctrine of acquiescence to set the parties’ property boundary line; Acquiescence for the statutory 15-year period; MCL 600.5801(4); Damages under MCL 600.2918; Nuisance-in-fact claim; Private nuisance

The court held that the trial court properly applied the doctrine of acquiescence to set the parties’ property boundary line. However, it found that the trial court erred in awarding damages to plaintiffs under MCL 600.2918. Thus, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for amendment of the judgment to delete the award of damages to plaintiffs. The case involved only acquiescence for the statutory 15-year period. Plaintiffs own real property that abuts defendant’s property. “Plaintiffs planted corn on the land, up to the plow line, as was their historical practice.” In 2017, however, defendant’s predecessor in interest, her mother, installed a fence and trees about 100 feet into the planted area (the disputed area). Defendant and/or her family ripped out the corn that had been planted in the disputed area. The trial court held that “defendant was not liable for trespass, adverse possession, common law or statutory conversion, or intentional infliction of emotional distress, but was liable for nuisance in fact.” It further determined that “the parties acquiesced to a ‘plow line’ as the actual boundary between their abutting properties.” Defendant claimed that it erred in applying acquiescence to set the parties’ property boundary line. Based upon the testimony and evidence presented the court found “no clear error in the trial court’s factual findings and no error of law in its determination that the doctrine of acquiescence” was applicable here. A preponderance of the evidence supported the finding that the true boundary line between the parties’ properties was the plow line that appeared to have been used in 2010. Defendant next claimed that the trial court erred in awarding damages to plaintiffs under MCL 600.2918 when no claim under that statute was ever asserted. There was “no dispute that defendant erected a fence on property the trial court found to belong to plaintiffs through acquiescence. It is also undisputed that corn had been planted in the disputed area prior to the fence being erected, the corn belonged to plaintiffs, and that after the fence was installed, defendant or one of her family members intentionally ripped out the corn in the fenced area. Thus, the trial court could have reasonably found that defendant was liable for a private nuisance-in-fact.” But it stated, and the court agreed, that there was “no testimony or evidence as to any specific amount of damages suffered by plaintiffs due to defendant’s installation of the fence and destruction of plaintiffs’ corn crop that had been planted in the disputed area. As a result, no monetary damages were awardable and the trial court erred in awarding plaintiffs $200 in damages.”