Brooks v. McMeekin

Citations

• 37 S.C. 285
• 15 S.E. 1019

Syllabus

<p>1. Findings op Fact.—This court will not interfere with findings of fact by a Circuit Judge, unless such findings are without any testimony to support them, or are against the manifest weight of the testimony.</p> <p>2. Evidence—Lost Paper.—No copy of an original agreement that is alleged to have been lost can be received in evidence until every legitimate effort has been made to produce or account for the original.</p> <p>3. Conveyance Before Marriage—Dower—Facts.—Where a father took a deed of conveyance from his son, then in’the last stages of consumption, only a few days before the son's marriage, and on the same day made an agreement to hold this land for certain uses of the widow and issue of said son, and there was evidence that the son was then very attentive to the lady whom he afterwards married, and that the father had heard of the engagement to marry, and both deed and agreement were kept secret for years, and until after the son’s death, this court declined to reverse the finding of fact by the court below, that the father knew, when he took the deed, of the son’s intended marriage, and that both parties intended to defeat the wife’s claim of dower.</p> <p>4. Findings of Fact—Dower—Rents—Counter-Claim.—The effect of testi^,mony is to be determined by the judge. Where dower is claimed, improvements on the land are not a proper counter-claim. Where maintenance is made a charge, it may be offset by services rendered, and it may be that moneys, (fee., received by a widow from the person in possession of her dower land should be deducted from her claim for an accounting of the dower rents and profits of her interest therein.</p> <p>5. Laches—Estoppel.—Where a widow learns that a deed, innocent on its face, had been executed by her husband before marriage for the purpose of defeating her dower right, but takes no action thereunder for years afterwards, and meantime innocent third parties, without notice and for value, purchase a portion of the land embraced