In Van Valkenburgh v. Lutz, 304 NY 95 [1952], the court found that: When the defendant had the opportunity to declare his hostility and assert his rights against the true owner, he voluntarily chose to concede that the plaintiffs' legal title conferred actual ownership . . . (where the court found that the declarations of a tenant who litigated the issue of title and ownership in order to assert his easement rights could be used to infer tenants lack of claim as of right to the subject property).