Everett v. Carleton
Everett v. Carleton
Opinion of the Court
Real actions, the defendants being the same in both. Each plaintiff claims title to one undivided half part in common of certain wild land in the town of Medford in the county of Piscataquis, estimated at about one thousand acres.
The defendants plead the general issue. The real question, then, is, which party shows the better title in himself.
In order to understand correctly the position of the parties, it becomes necessary to state the claims of title by which the plaintiffs respectively assert their rights of recovery against the defendants.
The deed from Wentworth to Stetson as appears from the evidence, was never delivered. It was made and sent to the register of deeds to be recorded, by the grantor without the knowledge of the grantee; ■ the grantee, when informed of the transaction repudiated it, and " said he would have nothing to do with it.” Nor did he afterwards receive it from the registry, or in any manner ratify the transaction.
But in the view we have taken of the case this does not become material. The plaintiff, not only in the first suit but also in the second, claims title not through Amasa Stetson or his legal representatives alone, but through a different source.
Samuel H. Blake having conveyed to Caleb Wentworth, as we have before stated, by deed dated July 9, 1853, recorded January 6, 1854, John D. Prescott, a creditor of Wentworth, brought suit against him and attached his real estate, the attachment being made January 5, 1854,— one day before the record of Wentworth’s deed to Stetson; judgment was recovered June 14, 1855, and an extent made upon these lands July 12, 1855, the whole being set off to satisfy the judgment and costs of levy. August 12, 1856, the judgment creditor, John D. Prescott, conveyed the premises by warranty deed to Henry A. and James H. Burkett, the deed being recorded November
Such is the plaintiff’s claim of title in these suits.
Whatever claim the defendants have, by way of record title, is derived through and under the Prescott levy, and conveyance to the Burketts, and may be thus stated : James H. Burkett was owing Phillip Brown, and Brown attached the real estate of James H. Burkett, on the 8th day of November, 1856, (understood to be one half in common and undivided of the lands in question) recovered judgment October 26, 1857, and on the 19th day of November, 1857, extended his execution upon Burkett’s undivided half of the real estate. Afterwards, on the 29th day of November, 1858, Phillip Brown, the judgment creditor, conveyed to these defendants by warranty deed, recorded December 2, 1858, the land set off on execution against James H. Burkett.
This attachment of Brown against Burkett was eleven months prior to the deed from the Burketts to Robert Thompson, and had it been valid, and followed by due proceedings, and the levy been valid, the plaintiffs might have met with difficulty in maintaining their actions, as to any title by way of the Stetson deed.
But the attachment upon the writ of Phillip Brown against
The deed from the two Burketts to Thompson of October 19, 1857, conveyed all that was set off to Prescott by his levy against Wentworth. That embraced all the land in controversy in both these suits. That passed, by the subseqent conveyances, to Everett who conveyed one half partin common and undivided to Gilman.
The plaintiffs, therefore, have the better title in themselves as against these defendants, and the entry must be in each suit,
Judgment for demandants.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Charles A. Everett v. Samuel D. Carleton, and others Frank Gilman v. Same
- Status
- Published