Archer v. Munday

Citations

• 17 S.C. 84
• 1882 S.C. LEXIS 51

Syllabus

<p>1. Testator directed his lands to be divided by commissioners equally between his daughter A and the children of his son B, to them and their heirs forever. The commissioners made the division and assessed a sum of money to be paid by A to equalize the partition. Held, that the payment of this assessment was not necessary to enable A to recover from a stranger in possession the part assigned to her.</p> <p>2. The action for recovery having been brought long after the assessment laid, and more than four years after the children attained their majority, the debt of A was barred by the statute of limitations.</p> <p>3. The title of A to this land was clearly not equitable; if not a devisee, she was certainly an heir at law.</p> <p>4. The facts, circumstances, and pleadings of this case show that the testator of plaintiff was the common source of title of both parties to the action, beyond whom plaintiff need not go in proving her title.</p> <p>■5. The devise in this case, taken together with a subsequent clause giving the residue of his property to trustees for his son B, to be fully possessed and enjoyed by B for life, and after his death such property “with the lands already specified to his children, to them and their iheirs forever, discharged of the trust,” shows testator’s intention to have been that A should have a moiety, and that the division was not to be per capita.</p> <p>6. If A had received property under her husband’s will (a fact not established by the evidence), it would not estop her from recovering her land of inheritance from a stranger who held under deed of the husband with general warranty.</p>