Skyles's Heirs v. King's Heirs
| Decision Date | 16 June 1820 |
| Citation | 9 Ky. 385 |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
| Parties | SKYLES'S HEIRS <I>v.</I> KING'S HEIRS. |
This was an action of ejectment brought on the joint demise of nine persons, who claim to be the heirs of Robert King, deceased. On the trial, they produced a patent to Robert King, and proved that only seven out of the nine were heirs of Robert King, deceased. The defendants gave in evidence, a title derived from the commonwealth, and gave evidence conducing to show that they had held seven years' possession under their title adverse to the plaintiffs. After closing the evidence on both sides, the defendants' counsel moved the court to instruct the jury, that if they believed, from the evidence, that the defendants, or their ancestor from whom they derived title by descent, had had quiet, peaceable and adverse possession of the premises in controversy, under their title, for seven years before this suit, the lessors of the plaintiffs could not succeed, unless they should prove that some one or more of them were infants, feme covert, or persons of unsound mind, or out of the United States, according to the exceptions contained in the act of assembly, which declares seven years' residence to be a bar.
The court refused this instruction; and, on the contrary, the court instructed the jury that the act of assembly, approved February 9, 1809, entitled "An act to compel the speedy adjustment of land claims," would not apply to the defendants' title so as to allow them the benefit of the provisions of said act, because it appeared that their certificate, entry, survey and patent, were all younger in date, and subsequent to the plaintiffs' patent, and, therefore, vested in the defendants no title in law or equity. To this opinion the defendants excepted.
Evidence was also given conducing to show the boundaries of each claim, and to disprove the boundaries of the plaintiffs' grant, and the residence of the defendants, and which is spread upon the record. The jury found for the plaintiffs as to seven ninths of the land, and for the defendants as to two ninths. The defendants moved for a new trial on the grounds that the verdict was against law, and against evidence, and on the ground that the court had misdirected the jury. The court overruled this motion, to which opinion the defendants excepted. These opinions, with others, are questioned by the assignment of error; but we have not thought it necessary to notice others, but will consider these in the foregoing order.
Although the defendants may not have shaped their motion in the strong shape which the law warrants, and might have asked the instruction on condition...
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