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85 Me. 374

Lyon v. Ogden

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided April 3, 1893

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1893-04-03

On report. This was a real action brought to recover certain land in Eden, Hancock county, and which the plaintiff claimed as one of the children and heirs-at-law of Samuel E. Lyon, late of New York city, deceased, or as her distributive part of the land as if her father had died intestate.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-04-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently October 1973

7 state decisions

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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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Walton, J.

¶1The question is whether real property situated in this .State can be effectually disposed of by a will having but two subscribing witnesses. The answer depends upon where the will is made. If made in this State, it will not. Our law requires at least three subscribing witnesses. But if made in another state or country, where but two subscribing witnesses are required, or, if first proved and allowed in another state or country according to the laws thereof, and then legally allowed and recorded in this State, as it may be, it will.

¶2This conclusion is seemingly in conflict with section 36, chapter 65, of the Revised Statutes of 1883. But the words in this section, "duly executed according to the laws of this state,” were, in the opinion of the court, rendered inoperative by the act of 1874, chapter 169, and should have been omitted in the revision of 1883. Their retention was probably the result of an oversight. They are repugnant to sections 12, 13, 14, and 15, chapter 64, of the Revised Statutes of 1883, and the latter provisions being the embodiment of more recent enactments, must control.

¶3This conclusion* entitles the defendants to judgment.

¶4Judgment for defendants.

Peters, C. J., Libbey, Foster and Haskell, JJ., concurred.
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