Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

9 Mass. 374

Smith v. Smith

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 15, 1812

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1812-10-15

Entry sur disseisin. The demandant counted on his own seisin within thirty years, and until disseised by * the tenant, who pleaded the general issue, which was joined. The cause was tried before the Chief Justice, at the sittings here after the last October term, and a verdict taken for the tenant, subject to the opinion of the Court upon the following question stated in the report of the Chief Justice.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1812-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1885

4 state decisions

1018121820183018401850186018701880decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

The Chief Justice

¶1overruled the objection, and the license was admitted. If the said license ought not to have been admitted in evidence to the jury, the verdict was to be set aside, and a new trial granted, that the tenant might have the benefit of the limitation and settlement act, so called. (1)

Tyler for the demandant.

¶2The statute of 1783, c. 32, authorized botli this Court and the Common Pleas to grant licenses, on suitable occasions, for the sale of the real estates of persons non compos; but the subsequent statute of 1783, c. 38, confines the authority to this Court only. The sale, then, of the lands demanded in this action, having been made under a license from the Common Pleas, was void, and did not affect the demandant’s estate in those lands.

Dana for the tenant.

¶3There are no negative words, or words of repeal, in the latter statute, and they may well stand together. They are both in force; and the jurisdiction still belongs to each of the courts.

The Court,

¶4being of that opinion, directed judgment to be entered for the tenant on the verdict.

¶5Stat. 1807, c. 74.

/9/mass/374 · .json · Public domain