DIVISION III
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
JOSEPHINE LINKER HART, Judge
CA06-71
December 20, 2006
PAUL MCCAIN
AN APPEAL FROM CRITTENDEN COUNTY
APPELLANT
CIRCUIT COURT
[NO. CV2004-379]
v.
HONORABLE VICTOR HILL,
DANA SULCER, CLIFF SULCER,
CIRCUIT JUDGE
AND BART TURNER
APPELLEES
AFFIRMED
Appellant Paul McCain appeals from an order that denied his adverse-possession
claim to 4.5 acres of farm land; enjoined him from entering the land; and awarded appellee
Bart Turner treble damages for appellant’s destruction of his crop. Appellant argues that the
trial court erred in 1) ruling that he failed to prove adverse possession of the 4.5 acres; 2)
applying, as res judicata or collateral estoppel, a decision rendered by another court in a prior
case; and 3) allowing appellees to pursue a trespass cause of action when they had been out
of possession and failed to prove ownership of the property. We affirm.
Appellees Cliff and Dana Sulcer, who are brothers, are the record owners of the 4.5-
acre tract. The property is part of a larger, 320-acre parcel—the Northern half of Section 12,
Township 7 North, Range 8 East, Crittenden County—that has been owned by the Sulcer
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family since at least 1925. From 1966 to 1995, Cliff and Dana’s grandmother, Alice Sulcer,
owned the Northern half of Section 12 (less a one-acre lot deeded to a third person).
According to Cliff, his father, Dana, Sr., farmed that land until his death in 1988. Thereafter,
from 1989 until 1995, Alice Sulcer leased the 319 acres in the Northern half of Section 12
to appellee Bart Turner, a farmer. Following Mrs. Sulcer’s death, Cliff and Dana, having
inherited the property, continued leasing it to Turner through 2003/2004.
According to Turner, he did not initially farm the 4.5 acres even though it was
included in the property that he leased. However, a Mr. Louis Steve Griffen testified that,
from 1968 to 1977, his father farmed the 4.5 acres, along with several acres to the wes