Keble's Lessee v. Arthurs
| Decision Date | 11 June 1810 |
| Citation | 3 Binn. 26 |
| Parties | Lessee of KEBLE v. ARTHURS. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
After two verdicts in favour of the same party, upon a simple matter of fact, it must be an extraordinary case in which the court will grant a new trial, though they have an undoubted right to do it; but it is otherwise where matter of law has been disregarded by the jury.
If a party knows of a survey having been made for another, and returned to the land office, without any improper conduct in the person obtaining it, it is against equity to permit the party having such knowledge to take advantage of those irregularities in the survey, over which the owner of it had no control.
THIS was an ejectment for a messuage and 155 acres of land in Centre county, tried before Brackenridge J at a Circuit Court for Centre on the 21st June 1808. It had been previously tried before the Chief Justice, and a verdict found for the defendant, which was set aside.
By the report of his honour, the plaintiff claimed under a removed warrant in his own name, dated the 29th July 1773 surveyed on the 15th August 1783, and returned into office the 29th June 1784. The purchase money was paid on the 8th of January 1774.
The defendant claimed under an improvement commenced by one Kelly in 1793 or 1794, from whom it was purchased by Arthurs.
The case turned principally upon the validity of the plaintiff's survey, in relation to which the material evidence was this: By the return of survey, the plaintiff's south boundary was stated to be a number of vacant hills; in another part it called for land of William Ramsey as a boundary; the survey consisted in the whole of twelve lines or sides, of which six were the lines of prior surveys marked on the ground, but they were not called for in the return of survey; at least one line however, peculiar to this survey, was marked on the ground the same having been traced, and there was some evidence of others. Shortly after the defendant purchased of Kelly, he said that he knew Keble's claim well enough, but he did not care any thing about it and there was evidence of conversations between Arthurs and the witnesses, (as well as the fact of Arthurs' residence near the ground five or six years,) before he bought, from which his knowledge of Keble's survey was inferrible. The south boundary however was not a ridge of hills, but it was about 40 poles from Bald Eagle creek, with a hill or two between; and William Ramsey had no survey in that quarter until the 19th August 1784, which was more than a year after the plaintiff's survey.
The defendant's counsel contended, that as the plaintiff's warrant was removed, it gave no right until survey on the ground, return and acceptance; and that this survey was not valid, because it contained internal evidence of not having been made on the ground, there being no hills, nor any survey for Ramsey, although the plaintiff's survey called for both. Such a return would not therefore be notice to any one; because, the warrant not being any guide, and the survey calling for what did not exist, it would not be possible for any one to know that it applied to the land in dispute. If the lines of old surveys had been set forth in the return, that would have been sufficient; but they were not mentioned, and therefore they could not serve as notice. Arthurs' knowledge of the claim was not enough; but if it were, the conversations were fixed to a point of time subsequent to his purchase.
The plaintiff's counsel admitted that the survey, under the removed warrant, conferred no right until returned into office; but as soon as accepted there, it was notice to all the world. That the survey was made on the ground in part was proved to demonstration by the marked trees which applied to no other survey; and it was unnecessary to run all the lines, because six of them were already run and marked for other surveys. It was of no consequence that this did not appear by the return of the plaintiff's survey; because the...
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