Riddle v. Riddle

• Decision Date: 20 November 1918
• Docket Number: 432.
• Parties: RIDDLE ET AL. v. RIDDLE ET AL.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

97 S.E. 382

176 N.C. 485

RIDDLE ET AL. v. RIDDLE ET AL.

No. 432.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

November 20, 1918

Appeal from Superior Court, Moore County; Harding, Judge.

Action by John Riddle and others against Alfred Riddle and another. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants appeal. No error.

In partition proceeding, where defendant claiming sole seisin testified to having entered into possession of the land on a certain date, and to having held land claiming it as his own record of entry was admissible to contradict his testimony as only vacant and unappropriated land can be entered.

This is a proceeding for the partition of land, the plaintiffs claiming as the heirs of John Riddle. The defendant Alfred Riddle, another heir of John Riddle, and John Davis, to whom Alfred had sold a part of the land, denied that John Riddle was the owner of the land at the time of his death, and pleaded sole seisin, and upon these issues the proceeding was tried in the superior court; it having been transferred by the clerk.

It was not denied that the petitioners and Alfred Riddle were the heirs of John Riddle.

The petitioners offered evidence of possession by John Riddle and of his widow under an allotment of dower.

The first exception of defendants is to the introduction of the judgment roll of the superior court of Moore county, in which the widow of John Riddle was the petitioner and the defendant Alfred Riddle and John Riddle's other children were parties defendant, and in which the widow alleged that John Riddle died seised of the 78 acres of land involved in this case (together with other lands) and asked for dower therein. The defendant Alfred Riddle filed no answer in the dower proceeding.

Dower was allotted as prayed for, and the widow remained in possession of the land in controversy.

The petitioners were permitted to offer evidence as to the contents of a deed made to the ancestor of the parties by one John McLeod. The only evidence as to the loss is the following testimony of Riley Riddle:

"I saw a deed after the death of my father. I saw the deed at my father's house. Alfred got the deed out and showed it to me. I left the deed with Alfred. I have never seen it since."

The court found as a fact that plaintiffs gave due notice in writing to the defendants to produce the deed, and that defendants stated in court that they do not have it and have never had it. The defendants excepted.

The petitioners also introduced a record showing that Alfred Riddle had entered the land in controversy under the entry laws, and the defendants excepted.

There was a motion for judgment of nonsuit which was overruled, and the defendants excepted.

The jury returned a verdict in favor of the petitioners, and the defendants appealed from the judgment rendered thereon.

Zeb V. Sanders, of Star, and U. L. Spence, of Carthage, for appellants.

H. F. Seawell, of Carthage, for appellees.

ALLEN J.

There is authority for the position taken by the defendants that judgments do not ordinarily operate as estoppels between plaintiffs or defendants, usually having this effect only as between adversary parties; but it does not appear that the decree in the dower...