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42 Ala. 495

Long v. Pace

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1868

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1868-01-15

Heard before Hon. N. W. Cooke, Chancellor. This was a bill in chancery filed by Pace (the appellee) against the appellant, to subject certain land to sale, for the enforcement of a vendor’s lien. There was a decree pro confesso, and a sale of the land ordered. From this the said Long appealed, and assigns for error the decree of the court. The opinion of the court is so full on the question decided, that no further statement is necessary.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently November 1902

9 state decisions

4018681870188018901900decided

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, J.

¶1The object of the bill seems to be to enforce the vendor’s lien upon real estate for the payment of the purchase money.

¶2It is essential, in a bill of this character, that the land should be described with sufficient particularity to inform the defendant what he is to defend against, and the court what particular land it is called on to render a decree for the sale of.

¶3This has not been done in the present case. The land which it is averred is subject to the lien, is described in the bill as follows: The north half of the southeast *496quarter of section eleven, township eighteen, and range eight.” But in what land district the land is located, or whether it is within the State of Alabama or not, is not stated.

¶4It is true the courts take judicial notice of the public surveys ; but section eleven, township eighteen, and range twenty-eight, may be found in many surveys of this charter, and without more definiteness of description, it can not be judicially known which was intended.

¶5The bill is defective in other respects than that named, and is very inartificiallv drawn; but, for the defect particularly pointed out, if no other, the decree of the chancellor can not be sustained, even though founded upon a decree pro confesso.

¶6Decree reversed and cause remanded.

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