Estate of Woodward v. Franklin, No. M2012-01408-COA-R3-CV, 2014 Tenn. App. LEXIS 13 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 14, 2014)

(a widow lived on an 83-acre tract of land from 1960, when she married her husband, until the 1990s, when she moved a short distance away; her husband died intestate in 1970, and she believed she owned the property, but under state intestacy law she would only receive one-third of the property if she exercised her dower right, which she did not, and property ultimately passed entirely to great nephew; widow paid the property taxes, provided all maintenance on the property, and granted her great nephew permission to hunt the property; only when she attempted to sell the property in 2009 or 2010 did the widow realize that title to the property was in her husband’s name only; she filed an action seeking a declaration of the true owner, and the trial court found that the widow had acquired title through adverse possession; on appeal, the great nephew argued that the widow was occupying the property only by permission; in affirming the trial court’s judgment, the court ruled that the widow had not occupied the property permissively; it was not necessary that the widow know she did not have title to the property for her possession to be “adverse”; her possession was exclusive, actual, adverse, continuous, open, and notorious for more than 20 years).