49 Ga. 165 | Ga. | 1873
This was an action of ejectment brought by the plaintiff on the several demises of Turner et al., against the defendants, to recover the possession of lot of land number one hundred and eight, in the fifteenth district of Worth county. The action was commenced on ifche 27th March, 1858. On the trial of the case, the jury, under the charge of the Court, found a verdict for the defendants. A motion was made for a new trial on the several grounds set forth in the record, which was overruled, and .the plaintiff excepted. The plaintiff offered in evidence a copy grant from the State to David Myrick to the lot of land in dispute, dated 20th April, 1823; also a deed from David Myrick to Long, dated 12th May, 1825, made in Jasper county, witnessed by Mills and Jackson, Justice of the Peace, and recorded 17th April, 1858; also a deed from Long to Davis, dated 10th July, 1839, made in Gilmer county, witnessed by Craven.and Green, Justice of the Peace, and recorded 17th April, 1858; also a deed from Davis to' Turner, the plaintiff’s lessor, dated 3d, December, 1856, made in Fulton county, witnessed by Goodman and Bell, Notary Public, recorded 19th April, 1858. The plaintiff read in evidence, a certified copy of an order from the Inferior Court of Putnam county, appointing a guardian for the person and property of David Myrick as an insane person, dated 10th October, 1825. D. A. Yason testified that he, with Snead and other attorneys at law, were employed by Turner, who was the only party plaintiff who had any interest in said case; that the deed from David Myrick to Long, one of the links in the plaintiff’s chain of title, came into his possession from Snead & Allen who were the plaintiff’s attorneys; that plaintiff recognized them as his attorneys, and employed witness to aid them in the prosecution of the suit at the time it was brought, and when they turned over the deeds to him they turned over the same as the deeds of Turner. At the time the suit was brought, and in all his connection with said case, Turner treated the deeds as his property. The de
The Court charged the jury in this case that it was incumbent on the plaintiff to show that he had been in possession of the land in dispute under the deed, or he would be driven to prove the execution of the deed, as at common law, that is, he must prove by the subscribing witnesses, or one of them, the execution of the deed. This charge of the Court, in view of the facts disclosed in the record, was error — construing this section of the Code in the light of the decision of this Court, in McCluskey vs. Leadbetter, 1 Kelly’s Reports, 351, a deed thirty years old, having the appearance of genuineness on inspection, and coming from the proper custody of those claiming title under it, may be read in evidence without proof of its execution, where there is no adverse possession of the property conveyed by it inconsistent therewith: See, also, Mathews vs. Castleberry, 43 Georgia Reports, 346. In this case there was no adverse possession of the land inconsistent with the deed for nearly thirty years, and not then, if the title under which the defendant claimed was a forgery or fraudulent, and he had notice of it.
Let the judgment of the Court below be reversed.