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121 Ala. 642

Middlebrook v. Barefoot

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1898

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1898-11-15

Ari’BAL from the Circuit Court of Pike. Tried before the Hon. J. W. Foster. M. T. Middlebrook as the administrator of .J. T. Barefoot brought suit in ejectment against G. W. Barefoot. The defendant pleaded not guilty. The defendant offered two deeds from the intestate to Mm.

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently June 1932

2 state decisions

Relies on Lewis v. Watson · Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Hammond

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1898-11-15

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MoOLELLAN, C. J.

¶1— If- the certificates of acknowledgment to the deeds were insufficient, it was competent to prove their execution by the officer who signed the certificates, his signature being taken as that of an attesting witness. — N. C. & St. L. R’y Co. v. Hammond, 104 Ala. 191, 199 and cases there cited.

¶2And if the certificates were not defective, the error of proving the signature by the officer involved no injury to the plaintiff.

¶3It is quite a mistake to suppose that a grantor can make an efficacious signature of a deed by the hand of another only when he is not sufficiently educated to write his own name. To the contrary the rule is that *644lie may affix bis signature by tbe band of another, tbe subscription being made in bis presence and at bis direction, however capable be may be mentally and physically at tbe time of writing bis own name.—Lewis, Admr. v. Watson, 98 Ala. 479; 9 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, p. 144; 1 Devlin on Deeds, § § 232, 233.

¶4The rulings of tbe trial court were in consonance with these principles, and its judgment is affirmed.

¶5Affirmed.

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