Norman Rockwell Print-Possessor Wins Family’s Ownership Spat

The presumption that possession favors ownership settled a dispute over which branch of a family tree owns four original Norman Rockwell drawings given to the parties’ grandfather, the Fourth Circuit said Friday.

William Elam said that he owned the drawings outright because his grandfather gave them to his mother before he died. Though there were some holes in Elam’s claim, Judge A. Marivn Quattelbaum Jr. said that Elam’s cousins failed to rebut the possession presumption. “Rather than establishing their own superior title, as the law requires, they merely tried to poke holes in Elam’s title,” the judge said.

Elam’s grandfather, ...