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17 Me. 14

Dow v. Plummer

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided April 15, 1840

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1840-04-15

This was a writ of entry, demanding a small tract of land in Portland. The defendant pleaded the general issue, and by brief statement, alleged that he was not tenant of the freehold. The plaintiffs proved their title by deed from James Neal, dated Feb. 2, 1827.

Decided 1840-04-15

¶1*16The opinion of the Court was by

Weston C. J.

¶2The evidence adduced at the trial, proves the title in the demandants. It does not appear, that Breioer had any color of title. His lease to the tenant, could give him none whatever. The demandant, Bow, entered upon his own land, and required the tenant to desist from incumbering it, with his building. This was a requirement which the tenant could not lawfully resist. He did so at his peril. It has been proved, that he had no right. Persisting, as it appears he did, in the occupation of the land, was a wrong to the demandants, which he has not justified.

¶3This was at their election, a disseizin. It was not for the tenant under the facts, to qualify his own wrong; to set the true owners at defiance, and to keep them out of possession, without rendering himself liable to this action. Upon this resistance, they had a right to treat him as a disseizor. The case of the Proprietors of No. 6 v. McFarland, 12 Mass. R. 325, is an authority directly in point for the demandants.

¶4Judgment on the verdict.

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