Carter v. Smith

• Decision Date: 13 June 1907
• Parties: CARTER ET AL. v. SMITH.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

44 So. 424

151 Ala. 610

CARTER ET AL. v. SMITH.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 13, 1907

Appeal from Circuit Court, Conecuh County; J. C. Richardson, Judge.

Action by Mary R. Smith against George M. Carter and others. From a judgment overruling a motion to vacate a judgment and quash the verdict, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

James F. Jones, for appellants.

Hamilton & Crumpton, Stallworth & Burnett, and J. A. Stallworth, for appellee.

SIMPSON J.

This appeal is from a judgment of the court overruling a motion to vacate a judgment previously rendered and quash the verdict on which said judgment was rendered. The gravamen of the contention of the appellant is that the description of the land recovered in the action of ejectment is so indefinite and defective as to render the same void.

It is true that the description in the complaint of the land sued for is evidently erroneous in some particulars, as, for instance, when the land is described as "beginning at the intersection of McGee and Belleville street, on the south side of McGee street and west side of Belleville street running thence westerly along the west side of Belleville street," from which it appears that the scrivener got either the points of the compass or the direction of running wrong. Yet at the close of the description it is stated to be "the Amos Chapman old place in Conecuh county Ala." Then in the verdict and judgment the recovery is for the land sued for, except that portion of it "bounded on the north by Belleville street, thence in a westerly direction along said Belleville street," etc.--not indicating at what point on Belleville street the point of beginning is. Yet this description closes with the words, "the same lot sold by P. C. Walker to Mrs. R Hirschfelder in April, 1882, record in Book J, page 183 containing one and three-quarter acres more or less." We have no information as to what proof was made before the court trying the case, and we must presume, in support of the correctness of the verdict and judgment, that these designations of the property furnished sufficient data to render the description intelligible. Baucum & Jenkins v George, 65 Ala. 259, 268; Eufaula Nat. Bank v. Pruett et al., 128 Ala. 470, 30 So. 731; Caston et al. v. McCord, 130 Ala. 318, 30 So. 431, and cases cited; Seymour et al. v. Williams, 139 Ala. 415, 36 So. 187; Carlisle v. Killebrew, 91 Ala. 351, 8 So. 355, 24 Am. St. Rep. 915; De...