Teresa Locke v. Gaius Locke et al.

The plaintiff, the title holder of the disputed real property, filed a detainer action seeking the removal of the defendants from a portion of her property.  The defendants were residing in a mobile home owned by the mother of one of the defendants.  The defendant’s mother had lived in the mobile home, which was located on the disputed parcel of real property, from 1984 until 2020 when she decided to relocate to an apartment and allow the defendants to live in her mobile home.  The defendants asserted adverse possession as a defense to the plaintiff’s detainer action, pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 28-2-103, tacking the mother’s years of possession onto their own.  The trial court entered a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, determining that the defendants had failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the mother’s possession of the property had been adverse for the requisite seven-year period.  The defendants appealed.  Discerning no reversible error, we affirm.