Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of Mississippi (Volume 20) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CASES ARGUED AND DETERMINED IN THE HIGH COURT OF ERRORS AND APPEALS FOR THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. JANUARY TERM, 1849. Stephen Stevenson's Heirs v. Andrew McREARY. While the rule is well settled, that the probate court cannot rder a sale unless every thing necessary to give them jurisdiction of the person and of the subject matter appears upon their records; yet where an administrator made a sale of real estate of his intestate, gave the purchasers a deed, in which he recited that the steps required by law had been taken, and placed the purchaser in possession; and thirty-four years afterwards the heirs of the intestate brought an action of ejectment for the land; held, that the court would presume from the lapse of time, and the defendant's undis- turbed possession, that the administrator had complied with the requisites of the law, though in some particulars the records of the probate court did not show that he had done so; and this presumption will prevail, unless it can be shown affirmatively that the administrator did not sell according to law; upon proof of which the presumption would yield. VOL. XII. 2 Stevenson's Heirs v. McReary. And it seems that such a presumption is strengthened by the proof that the sale took place in the infancy of the government; and that the officers who at the time and subsequently had charge of the records of the probate court, were careless and negligent in the discharge of their duties; and such proof is legal, to show the probability of a loss of the record. An administrator of Stephen Stevenson, deceased, made a sale of real estate of his intestate in 1606, gave the purchaser a deed and put him in possession; in 1840 the heirs of the intestate sued the purchaser in ejectment for the property; the records o...