Roe v. Doe ex dem. McCarty

• Decision Date: 12 November 1908
• Citation: 48 So. 49,157 Ala. 449
• Parties: ROE ET AL. v. DOE EX DEM. MCCARTY.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

48 So. 49

157 Ala. 449

ROE ET AL. v. DOE EX DEM. MCCARTY.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 12, 1908

Rehearing Denied Dec. 24, 1908.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Mobile County; Samuel B. Browne, Judge.

Action by John Doe, on the demise of Stephen J. McCarty, against Richard Roe, Thomas C. Barrett, and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Sullivan & Stallworth, for appellants.

Bestor Bestor & Young and L. H. & E. W. Faith, for appellee.

DOWDELL J.

This is a common-law action of ejectment. Only one demise was laid in the complaint, and that was in S. J. McCarty. The plaintiff in support of his right to recover, relied upon both prior possession and paper title. Many exceptions were reserved by the defendants to the rulings of the court, and here assigned as error, on the admission of documentary evidence offered by the plaintiff as tending to show a chain of paper title reaching back from the plaintiff to the government. But the view we take of the case renders it unnecessary to consider these assignments.

The undisputed evidence shows that one Tisdale, in 1898, while in the actual possession of the land in question, claiming the ownership of it, conveyed the same by deed to Miles E McCarty, and that said Miles E. McCarty, in 1901, by his last will and testament, devised the said land to the plaintiff S. J. McCarty. This evidence was in without any objection, and unquestionably established a prima facie case in favor of the plaintiff. The defendants admitted by their own evidence that their possession was subsequent to this. The defendant Thomas C. Barrett testified that he went into possession of the land in 1904, and that when he took possession of the lot it was vacant, and that he inclosed it with a fence; and in this connection he offered in evidence a deed from N. Harleston Brown to the said Thomas C. Barrett, of date July 22, 1904. There was no pretense that Brown, the grantor in said deed, was in possession of said land when he executed the same, and on plaintiff's objection the court excluded the deed. The defendants also offered in evidence a certified copy of a deed from one Campbell to Brown, of date in June, 1858, but without any offer to show that either Campbell, the grantor, or Brown, the grantee, had ever at any time been in possession of the land, and on plaintiff's objection this deed was excluded. In these several rulings no reversible error was committed.

On the conclusion of the evidence the court, at the request of the plaintiff, gave the general affirmative charge. In this there was no error. As the evidence then stood, the question was one of prior possession. The undisputed evidence showed prior possession in the plaintiff. The law is well...