58 Miss. 40 | Miss. | 1880
delivered the opinion of the court.
The bill of complaint in this cause was filed in the Chancery Court to annul or have declared void a deed purporting to have been made by one of the appellants, Mary K. Yost, and her husband, on the 9th of May, 1876. The deed on its face appears to have been executed by her, with her mark, and the execution of it is attested by John H. Boyd, who also on the date of the deed, as a justice of the peace, certified regularly to an acknowledgment of it by both the husband and wife. The bill charges that the appellant never executed the deed and never acknowledged it, and on this ground relief is prayed.
The bill was filed in March, 1878, and, the first summons on the bill being returned not found, an alias summons was issued and duly served on the appellee on the 24th of June follow
The chancellor sustained the motion and allowed the defendant to file his answer. And this is the first error complained of.
We do not doubt that this action of the chancellor was entirely correct. The filing of the answer occasioned no delay
The decree of the chancellor dismissing the bill was correct on the merits of the case. It is true the complainant and her daughter testified that the complainant refused, in the presence of the justice of the peace, to execute the deed or acknowledge it. In opposition to this positive testimony are the tacts, fully established, that the justice of the peace who attested the deed and certified to the acknowledgment was a man of high character and well acquainted with his official business, and that Yost, the husband, paid rent for the property conveyed in the deed, during his lifetime ; that Mrs. Yost knew of this, and after her husband’s death she paid rent for the same premises for a short time, and then voluntarily surrendered them to the appellee. It is also to be noted as a significant circumstance that the bill was not filed till after the death of the justice of the peace and of the husband. Under all the circumstances, the chancellor was well warranted in finding that the deed had been duly executed by the appellant.
Decree affirmed.