2 Johns. 395 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1807
The questions in this case principally respect the validity of the pleas. The declaration is correct, &nd states all that was requisite, in the first instance, to show a good and undisputed title conveyed to the defendant, and that he was bound to pay the money. He was to pay three months after being well satisfied, &c. and the award of the Onondaga commissioners ought to have satisfied him, until some lawful title appeared to controvert the one held under that decision. As that award was a public act, of which the defendant must be presumed to be conusant equally with the plaintiff, he was bound to take notice of it at his peril, and without further information from the plaintiff. (Cro. Ja. 390. 432.) It was then incumbent upon him, in order to avoid the obligation to pay, to state in his plea a lawful claim or title to the land prior to, and better than, the one conveyed to him by the plaintiff. Though the title derived from the plaintiff was to prove good and sufficient in law against all other claims, yet the covenant must be construed to mean lawful claims, in like manner as a covenant against the acts of all persons whomsoever, is understood to mean the acts of persons having lawful title, and not to extend to the acts of wrongdoers. So a general warranty is restrained to lawful interruption. (2 Saund. 178. and note 8. 3 Term, 584. 587. Greenly, &c. v. Wilcocks, ante, 4.) The law will never presume that the covenant applied to the wrongful claims of others, unless it be so expressed, because the law gives full protection against all such claims. But the first plea states only, that, Henry and his wife did claim title to the lot under a deed purporting to have been executed by the plaintiff’to one Nelson. It was not necessary for the de
The only circumstance that may be thought materially to distinguish the second and third pleas from the first, is the allegation that Henry and his wife, by virtue @f
Judgment for the plaintiff.