Caruthers v. Crockett
Caruthers v. Crockett
Opinion of the Court
delivered tbe opinion of the court:
Tbe plaintiffs brought this action of-ejectment to recover two tracts of land granted by tbe State of Tennessee to the president and trustees of the University of North Carolina, both grants bearing date 23d Nov., 1827, and each founded upon entries dated Dec. 16, 1822. The defendants claim under a 4,000 acre grant to Frederick Miller by the State of North Carolina of date July 10, 1788. The case was tried in the circuit court of Obion county, resulting in a verdict and judgment for defendants. Tbe question mainly controverted before tbe jury was as to locus in quo of the 4,000 acre grant to Miller, under which the defendants claim. There was much proof and many circumstances tending to sustain both the theory of the plaintiffs and the defendants as to the locality of the Miller grant, and after a careful consideration of the testimony, we are brought to tbe conclusion that, however the jury might have found the fact under the proof, we could not have disturbed their verdict upon any well settled rules. Certain errors of law in the rulings and in the charge of his Honor the circuit judge have been assigned by the plaintiffs which it becomes our duty to consider. The theory of the plaintiffs is that, the Ferdinand Miller grant, as originally located, covered a .considerable portion of the area of
The plaintiffs insist also that if mistaken in this, that those under whom the defendants claim, the owners of the Miller grant, before the university entiles were made, or at-least before they were surveyed, caused said 4,00(bacre tract to he surveyed and remarked at another place, and the surveys of the university entries, and divers others in the -vicinity, were made in conformity and in deference to such remarking, and that the owners of the Miller grant are estopped to claim what they now claim as the original locality' of their grant to the' prejudice of the plaintiffs. There is some proof adduced by the'plaintiffs’ténding to show this remarking, and that the line; and locality thus established was long recognized and acquiesced in by the owners of the' Miller grant, and by'contiguous proprietors, and that' the university was thus misled in appropriating tlio lands now' claimed by the plaintiffs. The circuit judge, after stating the general doctrines of the law of estoppel, thus charged the jury: “If the owners of the Miller grant employed’Rutherford to establish'the boundaries of their land and he afterwards, in good faith marked, or remarked the land in reasonable conformity to the calls of the grant, and they acted -upon or accepted the lines thus established, then the owners -of the Miller land could not afterwards change the boundaries thus made, even if there was a mistake, to the injury of subsequent entarers of adjacent lands made in reference to the boundaries of the Miller grant land as established by Rutherford.” And His Honor continues: “To make an act in pais estop a party as to recognition of an illegally run line as the boundary, the act of recognition must be shown to have been done knowingly and deliberately, not hastily or unadvisedly.” In this por
The remarking in this case was alleged to have been done about the year 18 — . In 1826, Cheatham and Crockett, two of three owners of the Miller grant, executed to Henry Rutherford a deed to a portion of said tract lying in the southeast corner of said grant. This deed re
The plaintiff requested the court to charge the jury in reference to this deed that “recitations in the deeds are binding on the parties to the deeds as solemn admissions of the facts recited,'’ which the court declined, but charged that the recitations in the deeds were mere prima facie evidence of the facts recited'; that the parties might prove that they were mistaken. It is insisted by the plaintiffs that, in view of the facts in controversy and the facts recited in the deed, that this charge was error; that the charge took away the force of the fact recited in the deed by Crockett and Cheatham to Rutherford that they conveyed the land in consideration of services rendered by Rutherford in establishing the lines of the 4,000 acre Miller grant. .It is laid down as a fundamental principle that a recital or allegation in a deed or bond, which is certain in its terms and relevant to the matters in hand, is conclusive between the parties to the controversy growing out of the instrument itself or the transaction in which it was executed. Herm. Estoppel, 232. And when it can be collected from the deed that the parties to it have agreed upon a certain admitted state of facts as the basis on which they contract, che statement of those facts, though by way of recital estops the parties from proving the contrary. Id., 234. We are not prepared to hold that these principles embrace the character of recital embraced in the deed in question.
We think there was no error in the charge- on this point, but for the error indicated the judgment will be reversed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- CARUTHERS v. CROCKETT
- Status
- Published