2 Stew. 115 | Ala. | 1829
The facts shewn by the bill of exceptions require that we should express an opinion; first, upon the nature of the title of the defendants founded on previous possession: second, upon the legality of the certificate offered by the plaintiff: and third, whether the possession of documentary evidence of title gives paramount right.
Evidence of title to real property founded on and deduced alone from possession, is the most unsatisfactory and inconclusive of all other, by which title is made out.
Possession cannot, consistently with reason and law, unless sanctioned by the length of time which the Legislature have prescribed a3 a bar to an action to try titles, give a right to lands, but can only be considered in a case thus circumstanced, as creating a presumption that the title is with the possession. It is believed that a plaintiff can only recover where such proof is not accompanied with, or countervailed by proof of title in another. The presumption which it creates may be destroyed in various ways, by shewing that the title was not with the possession, a# that the possession was permitted, or that it was held against the consent of the person in whom the title is. This brings us to consider the second point.
By an act of Congress passed on the 8th. of May, 1822, entitled an act confirming claims to lots in the town of Mobile, &c.
By an act of the Mississijipi Territory,
The certificate, it is declared by our statute, vests the legal title fully and completely in the grantee. Possession it has been said conveys no title in itself, but is evidence when uninterrupted for a long space of time, that the title is with the possession; the force of which presumption yields to documentary evidence. If then the possession of the ancestor was of a character to authorise the inference that the title was vested in him, that inference must yield to the strength of the title vested by the certificate in the heirs of Farmer. It is unnecessary for us to decide upon the legal effect of the certificate further than we have expressed ourselves. Its conclusiveness as evidence against all persons who claim adversely,. or whether the facts and and suggestions on which it issues can be enquired, into now, are topics which cannot be legitimately adjudicated in this case. We will however remark, that the method pursued under the direction of Congress, of examining and confirming, and rejecting the Spanish and British land claims, seems to have been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in De La Croix vs. Chamberlain.
In the action of trespass to try titles, the plaintiff must recover upon his own title, and if he shall make out & grima facie case, it is competent for a defendent to shew a bettor title in a third person. It was therefore legal lor the plaintiff to have defended himself behind the title in the heirs of Farmer. It is scarcely necessary to say any thing of
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Land Law, 819.
Land Law, 323.
Laws Ala. 248.
12 Whea. 599.