108 Ga. 520 | Ga. | 1899
The plaintiffs in the court below, the plaintiffs in error here, brought an action of complaint for land against Perry. The latter pleaded title by prescription. The plaintiffs relied upon the will of their grandfather, in which he devised to his daughter, the mother of the plaintiffs, certain lots of land for life, and after her death to her children. The testator died in 1873, andhis daughter in 1880. Her husband seems to have taken possession and control of the land after the death of his wife, and in 1890 he sold the land now in dispute to Perry, giving him a bond for titles. At the trial of the case Perry offered this bond in evidence as color of title. It was .objected to by the plaintiffs, on the ground that the description of the land was not sufficiently definite to identify the land. The court overruled .the objection and admitted the bond as color of title, to which the plaintiffs excepted. This ruling is made one of the grounds of their motion for new trial, and is the decisive question in the case as presented by the record. If the bond was admissible and the ambiguity therein. was sufficiently explained by the extrinsic evidence, Perry had undoubtedly a good prescriptive title, as he had been in possession of the land for more than seven years before this action was commenced, and there was no disability on the part of the plaintiffs to prevent their bringing their action at any time during his possession. They were all of age at the time of their mother’s death. The descriptive part of the bond for titles, in so far as it is here material, reads as follows r “ good and sufficient warranty title in fee simple (except in the minerals and privileges of working for minerals) to the following lands, to wit, all the lands which James Knox and now lying on the road from the town of Canton, in said county, to Orange, about six miles and one quarter east of Canton, it being in the third district and 2d section of said county, all in one body, containing several lots and parts of lots, also, adjoining, to said tract of land, aplaceknownastheErwin-Henderson place, one lot and part of another, and others,” etc. There was quite a difference
The description is certainly neither clear nor definite, but the uncertainty is not so great that the description can not be made certain by extrinsic evidence. Taking together the description in the bond and the extrinsic evidence introduced for the purpose of identifying the lands, we- think that the land could be definitely located. Certainly the bond was admissible as color of title. We have the will above alluded to, in which the numbers of the lots and the districts of the county
Judgment affirmed.