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55 Mo. 494

Totten v. James

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided February 15, 1874

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1874-02-15

I. The certified copy of the record of the deed from Whitehead to Snell was not admissible in evidence, because the original of said deed did not appear to have been properly acknowledged under our laws or the laws of Kentucky, when made, nor was any proof of its execution offered, nor was any proof offered to show what were the laws of Kentucky at that time in reference to the acknowledgment of deeds. (Crispen vs. Hannavan, 50 Mo., 415 ; 1 Greenl.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1874-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently August 1939

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

301874188018901900191019201930decided

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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Napton, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This was an ejectment by plaintiff to recovera tract of land in the Military Bounty Land District. ■

¶3The plaintiff’s title was based on a deed from one Whitehead to her ancestor, dated June 3, 1819, and recorded in Howard Co., Mo., Nov. 8, 1819.

¶4The defendant offered an outstanding title in one Gibson, depending on a deed made by plaintiff’s ancestor, dated Jan’y 17, 1820, and recorded March 6,1872. The only questions in the case are presented by the admission of the certified copy of the first deed, and the rejection of the certified copy of the second. The deed from Whitehead to Snell, plaintiff’s ancestor, is clearly admissible under the 35th and 36th sections of the law concerning Evidence (Wagn. Stat., 595), since the legislative interpretation of these sections by the Act of March 22,1873 (Sess. Acts of 1873, p. 44), and if there was any doubt about the propriety of its being received in evidence under the statutes as they were at the trial, it would be useless to send the case back, as it is certainly admissible now. This is only a question of costs.

¶5The deed to Gibson was properly excluded. There was no proof of the loss or destruction of the deed (Barton vs. Murrain, 27 Mo., 240). Besides, it was offered as an outstand*497ing title, and was barred as to the plaintiff by the Statute of 'Limitations. (McDonald vs. Schneider, 27 Mo., 405.)

¶6The judgment is affirmed, but the costs of the appeal adjudged against plaintiff below.

Judges Adams and Wagner absent.
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