The complaint in this case is in ejectment. The issue was joined, the case proceeded to trial and at the close of the plaintiff’s case the court entered a judgment of nonsuit. Plaintiff appeals.

*271 The complaint alleged that plaintiff “and her predecessor have been in the peaceable, adverse, open, notorious possession of the * * * property [described below] under col- or of title for more than thirty (30) years last past.” It also alleged defendants’ trespass in entering the property and tearing down a fence thereon and forcibly restraining possession thereof. The complaint also alleged that plaintiff was the owner of the fee simple title of the property in question, an allegation which is unnecessary to consider in view of the answer filed.

The answer denied the allegations of the complaint but alleged no title in the defendants. The Alaska statute provides “The defendant shall not be allowed to give in evidence any estate in himself, or another in the property, or any license or right to the possession thereof, unless the same be pleaded in his answer * * * ” § 3764, Compiled Laws of Alaska 1933. Continuous prior possession is a sufficient estate to warrant a suit in ejectment against a mere intruder. 1 Campbell v. Silver Bow Basin Mining Co., 9 Cir., 1892, 49 F. 47 , 1 Alaska Fed. 240 ; Wilson v. Fine, D.C., 38 F. 789, 792 .

*272 Hence the only question before the district court was whether the plaintiff had a continuous possession of the property prior to the claimed trespass of the defendants.

The real estate claimed was described in the complaint as follows:

The particular description by metes and bounds of the “property,” being tire “real estate” previously mentioned, conti'ols -over the general reference to a lot and block which is not described as in any survey or on any map. Inge v. Garrett, 38 Ind. 96, 98, 100 ; Cushing v. Conness, 4 Neb. Unof. 669, 95 N.W. 855 , 857; Haggin v. Lorenz, 15 Mont. 309 , 39 P. 285, 286 ; Cf. Elwell v. Borland, 131 Me. 189 , 160 A. 27, 28 ; Carter’s Adm’r v. Quillen, 239 Ky. 583 , 39 S.W.2d 1012, 1013 ; Hatcher v. Virginia Mining Co., 214 Ky. 193 , 282 S.W. 1102, 1103 .

Plaintiff offered evidence tending to show her long continued possession of and her eviction by the defendants from the property described, but the district court declined to admit it over the objection that it was “incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, no foundation laid, and not within *273 the issues of the case.” After several attempts to introduce the evidence had failed, counsel for plaintiff asked the court to state the reason for its denials, remarking that it would be of assistance both to his litigant and to the appellate court. The district court refused to comply after several refusals to admit evidence we regard within the issues, with the unfortunate statement in the following colloquy:

We agree with counsel’s statement that this court wants to know the ground of these rulings in such an action in ejectment. We are unable to determine it from the record. We may guess that it was because it was thought that *274 in Alaska possession is not a legal estate which could be the foundation to be laid in an ejectment suit.

We also agree with appellant that “a lawsuit is not a game” between opposing counsel. Cf. Escher v. Harrison Securities Co., 9 Cir., 79 F.2d 777, 780, 781 . It is a proceeding in which the court seeks to do justice between opposing litigants. It is the litigant who is to be assisted in the search for justice by a clear understanding of the ground for the court’s rulings where the litigant’s attorney requests it.

We think it error to have denied the introduction of the proffered evidence. The judgment is

Reversed.

The pertinent sections of the Alaska law are, Compiled Laws of Alaska 1933: