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4 Munf. 310

Whitacre v. M'Ilhaney

Supreme Court of Virginia

Decided December 15, 1814

Supreme Court of Virginia · decided 1814-12-15

IN the trial of an action of ejectment in behalf of Ceciliq MHlhaney against Benjamin Whitacre, in the superior court °* ^aw ^01' Loudoun county, the plaintiff, having first read jn evidence a patent for the lapd in dispute, from the late * proprietor of the Northern Neck, to Gidney Clark, grandfather of Gidney Clarke the younger, dated November 23d, -1740, farther offered in evidence a document described as “a recor[l in a suit in the high court ot chancery, between Mary…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1814-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently May 1925

9 state decisions

30181418201830184018501860187018801890190019101920decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Judge Roane

¶1pronounced the following opinion of the court.

¶2It is the opinion of the court, that there is errpr in the judgment and proceedings of the Superior Court of law in this ; that the decree offered and admitted in evidence, and stated in the first bill of exceptions, being only a copy of a copy, was inadmissible, and ought not to have gone to the jury. On the same ground, of its being a copy of a copy, the deed from Samuel Love and Hugh Stuart, two of the commissioners, to Theodorick Lee, the third commissioner, acting under that decree, if the same was offered in evidence and objected to, ought to have been rejected : and, even to the original of that deed, the other objections taken in the argu-. ment of this case, and particularly the objection, that the bargainee, being an acting commissioner under said decree, could not purchase, appear to the court very important, and worthy of consideration: but, it not clearly appearing by the exceptions, that that copy was offered, and objected to, and admitted in support of the plaintiff’s title, the court refrains from pronouncing any opinion thereon ; and for the further reason, that it is understood that this latter question is now pending before this court, and to be decided, in the appeal from the final decree in the suit of Mary Hall, executrix of Upton Law, and Mary Clarke and others, referred to in the said bill of exceptions.(1)

¶3The court is also of opinion that the Superior Court erred *313In admitting the record stated in the last bill of exceptions, to go to the jury, “ to prove that the land in dispute had been assigned to the plaintiffthe court thereby undertaking to decide, not the legality and relevancy of that evidence only, but also its weight and effect; although the same may have been legal testimony, tending to prove that fact.

¶4For these reasons, the judgment of the Superior Court is reversed with costs : the verdict of the jury is set aside, and the cause remanded to the Superior Court of law for a new trial to be had therein, according to the principles herein before declared.

¶5 Note. The appeal here mentioned was, afterwards, viz. on the 'lPth of March 1815, dismissed as having beer, improvidently allowed; it appearing, “ that the testator of the appellant was not included in the decree, and that, of consequence, his rights not being affected, he was not aggrieved thereby.”

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