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Ibetang v Sked [1963] TTLawRp 10; 2 TTR 454 (9 September 1963)

TRIAL DIVISION OF THE HIGH COURT

PALAU DISTRICT

Civil Action No. 278

NGEDRONG IBETANG

Plaintiff

v.

NGIRMEKUR SKED and OBAKRAIRUR SKED

Defendants

September 9, 1963

Action to determine ownership of land in Ngardmau Municipality, formerly transferred from clan to lineage, after which lineage acquiesced in defendants' use of parts of land. The Trial Division of the High Court, Chief Justice E. P. Furber, held that land was not used by defendants long enough at any one time to give them ownership of land itself, but that defendants own plantings made by them and have right to go upon land and harvest them.

1. Palau Land Law-Use Rights

Under Palau custom, one may be allowed to plant on lands unused by owner, and although plantings belong to person making them, ownership of land itself is not transferred.

2. Palau Land Law-Lineage Ownership-Use Rights

Under Palau custom, where parties plant trees on land belonging to lineage with acquiescence of lineage, they are entitled to use trees and to go on premises for that purpose as long as trees bear reasonably well or until lineage arranges with parties to acquire ownership of trees.

FURBER, Chief Justice

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. The land in question is part of that transferred by the Iuet Clan to the Itelochang Lineage within that clan and has never been transferred by the Itelochang Lineage.

2. Members of the Itelochang Lineage, however, have at least acquiesced in, if they did not definitely permit, the defendants Ngirmekur Sked and Obakrairur Sked and their father Sked before them, using parts of the land at times, but not long enough at any one time to give the defendants ownership of any of the land itself.

OPINION

The first finding of fact above controls the main issue in this action, which is as to the ownership of the land.

[1] There remains, however, the question of the ownership of the defendants' plantings on the land. It appears that in German times and early Japanese times Palauans were very cooperative and frequently permitted or acquiesced in other persons' planting on their lands if these were unused by the owner and that it was well recognized in such cases that the plantings belonged to persons making them without any thought of the transfer of ownership of the land itself. This concept has continued to a declining extent down to the present time when there appears to be a much keener and more exact feeling about ownership of land than there was in former days.

[2]