Background
Gregory and Leah Sempel have lived on property in Benewah County since 1979 and operate Pokey Creek Farm there. A 5.95-acre tract immediately north of their deeded parcel is enclosed by an aging barbed-wire fence but is record-owned by the State of Idaho, which acquired the larger parcel containing the tract in a 1996 land exchange.
The State sued in 2022 to quiet title and for damages based on alleged unauthorized occupation, timber trespass, and trespass-related damage. The Sempels counterclaimed, asserting that they had acquired the tract through adverse possession and boundary by agreement. They offered declarations describing decades of farming, livestock use, improvements, and treatment of the fence as the boundary. The district court granted the State summary judgment on quiet title, declined to rule on both sides’ evidentiary motions to strike, and entered a Rule 54(b) partial judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The Idaho Supreme Court vacated the partial judgment, reversed the grant of partial summary judgment to the State, and remanded. It held that the district court erred by declining to decide the parties’ motions to strike before ruling on summary judgment. Admissibility of summary-judgment evidence is a threshold issue, and the court could not effectively disregard, weigh, or resolve conflicts in the Sempels’ declarations without ruling on their admissibility.
The Court further held that the Sempels raised genuine disputes of material fact on both adverse possession and boundary by agreement. Their evidence could support application of Idaho’s lot-number exception to the adverse-possession tax-payment requirement, because they testified that they paid taxes and offered evidence suggesting their property was not assessed by a metes-and-bounds description. Their evidence also supported a factual dispute over whether a long-standing fence was established and recognized as an agreed boundary. The Court did not hold that the Sempels proved either claim; it held only that the State was not entitled to summary judgment.
Key Takeaways
- A trial court must resolve objections to summary-judgment evidence before deciding the merits.
- Uncontroverted testimony and assessment evidence may create a triable issue under the lot-number exception to Idaho’s adverse-possession tax requirement.
- Evidence that adjoining owners treated a long-standing fence as a boundary can create a triable boundary-by-agreement claim, even if a later survey shows the fence is not on the deed line.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that summary judgment is not a vehicle for discounting sworn evidence as weak or uncorroborated. Courts must draw permissible inferences for the nonmovant and leave disputed factual questions for trial.
For Idaho property disputes, the ruling preserves the practical force of the lot-number exception and the long-established-fence presumption where neighbors’ on-the-ground boundary practices diverge from record title.