Wanda Banker v. George, David, Charles, Terry, and Clifford Foster, Nancy Shannon, Patrick Kirk, Carolyn Foster, as Gaurdian of Black Foster, Brandon Foster, Ashley Foster and Lyndall L. Daniel

This boundary dispute appeal involves an indispensable and necessary party. The plaintiff and the defendants own adjoining tracts of land in a rural area. After questions about their common boundary arose, the defendants hired a surveyor. The defendants’ surveyor
concluded that the common boundary lay further west than the plaintiff believed. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit seeking a judicial determination of the proper boundary and an award of damages for timber that the defendants had cut. After some delay, a bench trial was held. During the trial, surveyors for both parties testified that the trial court’s resolution of the boundary dispute could affect the owner of the parcel to the east of the defendants. After the trial, the trial court issued an order specifying where the boundaries of the defendants’ land should be staked out. After the boundaries were marked in accordance with the trial court’s order, the defendants filed a motion to reopen proof, arguing that the boundaries established
by the trial court encroached on land owned by the defendants’ neighbor to the east. The trial court denied the motion and rendered a final judgment. The defendants appeal. We vacate the trial court’s order, concluding that the landowner to the east of the defendant was an indispensable and necessary party and that the trial court erred in declining to join him as a
party once the proof indicated that the neighboring landowner could be affected by the resolution of the boundary dispute between the plaintiff and the defendants.