Holloran v. Meisel

Citations

• 87 Va. 398
• 13 S.E. 33
• 1891 Va. LEXIS 83

Syllabus

<p>1. Ejectment—JSoidence of title.—In an action of ejectment a patent duly issued and authenticated, presented hy plaintiff, is prima facie evidence of title in him.</p> <p>2. Idem—Unexecuted patent.—In. such action paper writing purporting to be a patent from a governor of Virginia in colonial times, but unsigned and unsealed, is of course inoperative to show an outstanding title in a third person.</p> <p>8. Idem—Instructions—Case at bar.—Parcel of land was duly granted to plaintiff hy the governor of this State by patent dated February 12th, 1887. It had been waste and unappropriated up to three years before, when defendants, to whom a lot adjacent to, but not embracing it, had been conveyed, fenced it in, and refused to surrender it to plaintiff. At the trial of his ejectment, after plaintiff had offered in evidence his patent, defendants put in evidence the said unsigned and unsealed paper, and the court instructed the jury that “if they believed from the evidence the patent dated October 12th, 1687, to Joshua Stapp for 277 acres of land included the land in controversy, then the land was not after that waste and unappropriated, and the grant of the land in controversy to plaintiff by the patent in evidence was void, and they must find for the defendants ”: held, instruction improper.</p>