47 Vt. 359 | Vt. | 1875
The opinion of the court was delivered by
As the plaintiffs acquired their title from Patience Burroughs, and the defendants theirs from Simeon Palmer, and the action of ejectment that she brought against him was for the possession of the same land that is in dispute in this action, any judgment in that action would be between parties to whom the parties in this action are respectively privies, and about the same subject matter, and be conclusive upon these parties as to all matters adjudicated in it. The court properly looked into its own docket entries to see what had been done by the court in that action, without requiring proof of the record written out at length, as would have been necessary to make proof of the proceedings in another court. When looked into, the entries show a verdict for the defendant in that action, and do not show in express terms any judgment on the verdict. In some of the county courts in this state, the practice has been not to make any formal entry of judgment on verdicts, but to treat all verdicts left to stand, as having judgment rendered on them, and to have the records made up
The name, “ Lington,” set forth in the deed to Patience Burroughs as the name of the town in Addison county in which the
The deed from Pope to Ralph, a grantor of the plaintiffs, and Stearns, was a quit-claim deed, merely, for which it is not shown that they paid anything, and, even if it had covered the land in dispute, which it did not, would not have shown, nor had any proper tendency to show, but that Ralph owned the land, or claimed to own it, which was the question on which it was offered to bear.
The motion in arrest of judgment assserts that the declaration is insufficient to warrant any judgment for the plaintiffs upon, and the decision upon that motion is to be reviewed in the light of the declaration alone. It is true, as claimed for the defendants in argument, that, in an action by husband and wife jointly, the declaration must set forth the interest of the wife in the cause of action, and should not set forth as a substantive ground of recovery, anything that wmuld constitute a cause of action of the husband alone to the exclusion of the wife. This does not mean that the exact estate or interest of the wife in the subject-matter of the action, must be precisely stated, but means that so much must be stated as to show her to be entitled to sue the same, as a declaration in behalf of any plaintiff, or any number of plaintiffs, must show that the plaintiff, or all the plaintiffs, are respectively entitled to sue. Nor does it mean that matters in aggravation merely, in which the husband is alone interested, may not be set forth in an action by him and wife, but only that he and his wife cannot together recover on any cause of action that accrued to himself alone. Russell wife v. Corne, 2 Ld. Raym. 1031; Todd & wife v. Redford, 11 Mod. 264. In each count in this declaration, the gist of the cause of action set forth is the break
Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.