The Title Reporter — Spring 2023

Here is what we cover in this issue of The Title Reporter: A Legal Update for the Title Insurance Industry:

• An appellate court in Arkansas, affirming a trial court’s decision, has ruled that a title insurer had properly denied coverage to an insured bank in connection with a defect in title of which the bank had been aware.
• An appellate court in Texas has affirmed a decision by a trial court in Texas rejecting a lawsuit alleging that a title insurance company had breached a commitment for title insurance.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming a district court’s decision, has ruled that a funds transfer fraud endorsement in a crime protection insurance policy covered an insured escrow agent’s claim of loss stemming from a fraudulent routing number that had been supplied to the escrow agent.
• An appellate court in New York has affirmed a trial court’s decision rejecting a defendant’s contention that he owned by adverse possession the property on which his retaining wall was situated, finding that the defendant failed to demonstrate that the retaining wall had been in the same location for the required 10 year period.
• The New York Surrogate’s Court has rejected an adverse possession claim to a deceased property owner’s home by her grandson and her grandson’s wife, finding that they had failed to establish “any rights in the property at all.”
• The Appellate Division, Second Department, has affirmed a New York trial court’s decision dismissing a complaint against companies that had erected a 40-foot high sign that allegedly encroached on the plaintiff’s property, agreeing with the trial court’s conclusion that the companies had demonstrated their ownership of the property by adverse possession.
• An appellate court in New York has upheld a trial court’s decision to preliminarily enjoin the defendant from interfering with an easement claimed by the plaintiff.
• The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, has affirmed a decision by an upstate New York trial court, finding that the plaintiffs had a prescriptive easement over a lot owned by the defendants that entitled the plaintiffs to continue to cross the defendants’ property to reach the St. Lawrence River.
• An appellate court in New York has affirmed a decision of the Supreme Court, Erie County, rejecting a motion filed by nonparties to a quiet title action seeking to vacate a default judgment in that action, ruling that the nonparties lacked standing to seek to vacate the default judgment.

 Lawrence S. Han, Michael J. Heller and Matthew V. Spero