King v. Boyce
King v. Boyce
Opinion of the Court
We have several times read the petition in this case, and thus attempted to arrive at the design of the pleader. The petition contains many averments which are confused and disconnected. It is difficult, to reach a conclusion as to the equity which the plaintiff seeks. As far as we can understand the allegations in the petition, they make this case: In the year 1864 plaintiff’s father, Welch, purchased certain land from Samuel Sewell, who was the grantee under a deed from Pierce Sewell. The deeds by which these two conveyances were made were lost or destroyed, and there is no record of either of them. In 1866 plaintiff’s father procured a deed from Pierce Sewell, the original grantor, to the petitioner’s husband, King, without King’s knowledge or consent. In 1867 she and her husband entered upon the land as tenants of her father, and in that year her husband and her father made a contract by which the former was to purchase the land, the father removing to another county. In 1869 she owned a tract of land in Campbell county of the value of $750, and this she exchanged with her father for a part of the land in dispute,
The above is the best condensation we can make of the petition. The court dismissed the petition, upon demurrer, for want of equity. This we think was not error. It seems to us •that this is an effort upon the part of a wife, after her husband has become embarrassed with debt, to claim property which belonged to him. According to the allegations of the petition, the husband had a deed to this land made to him by Pierce Sewell in 1866; he had control of the land, and he used it as his own for at least twenty-seven years after her alleged purchase from her father. The husband has lived upon the land, cultivated it, and doubtless exercised all the acts of ownership and •control which a man usually has over his own land. He had made a contract with her father to purchase it; and one of her allegations not mentioned above was, that the husband paid part of the purchase-money. He borrowed money and gave a deed to part of the land as security for the debt. She alleges that this was done without her knowledge or consent; but at least she made no effort, wheir she ascertained it, to fix the
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.