Case ID: va_29/html/0233-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BROOKE, P.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Snapp v. Spengler and Wife.
    February, 1830.
    (Absent Coaltbe and Gkeen, ,T.)
    Writ of Right- -Count — Certainty of Demand. — Thcount in writ of right demands a certain tenement consisting of the one stone house with the appurtenances &c. Help, this is a demand o£ the land on which the house stands, and is certain enough. e ' Í
    Same — Pica—Blanks—Bad Grammar —Effect of Verdict. —To count in writ of right by husband and wife in right of wife, tenant flies a plea in blank throughout. and tenders the mise to the demandant in the singular; replication filed by both demandants i oins the mise as for m ale demandant only; assize is charged to inquire whether demandants have right as they demand: Help, after yerdict Cor demandants, the blanks, informalities and bad grammar of plea and replication, immaterial.
    In a writ of right, brought by the appel-lees against the appellant, in the circuit court of Shenandoah, the demandants’ count was in these words: “Anthony Spengler and Catharine his wife, by their attorney, demand a certain tenement consisting of the one stone house with the appurtenances in the county of Shenandoah, of which the said Snapp now holds possession, and which is situated on the *land conveyed by Joseph Stone to Christian Stover, and by him devised to the said Catharine Spengler: whereupon the said A. S. and C. his wife sa3', that they have right to have the tenement aforesaid consisting of the said stone house with the appurtenances” &c.
    Snapp, the tenant, put in a plea, which was in blank throughout, thus: ‘ ‘And the aforesaid , by his attorney, cometh and defendeth the right of the said stone house with the appurtenances, when and where it behoveth him, and all that concerneth it, and whatsoever he ought to defend, and chiefly the tenement aforesaid with the appurtenances as of right, namely, tenement, containings , in the county of Shenandoah, and bounded by , and putteth himself upon the assize, and prayeth recognizance to be made! whether he hath greater right to hold the I tenement aforesaid with the appurtenances as he now holdeth it, or the said to have as he now demandeth it.” ; I |
    The replication was as follows : “And the aforesaid A. S. and C. his wife in like manner putteth himself upon the assize, and pra3Teth recognizance to be made, whether he hath greater right to hold the tenement aforesaid with the appurtenances as he now holdeth it, or the said Snapp to have it as he now demandeth it.”
    The assize was sworn and charged to try, 1 ‘Whether Snapp had more right to hold the tenement, which A. S. and C. his wife _de-manded against him, or A. S. and C. his wife to have it as they demanded.”
    Verdict for the demandants, that they had greater right to have the tenement with the appurtenances in the count mentioned, to wit, the said stone house, than the tenant had to hold the same. Whereupon the circuit court gave judgment for the demand-ants; and Snapp appealed to" this court.
    Johnson, for the appellant.
    The only description of the subject demanded is that contained in the count — '“the one stone house with the appurtenances in Shenandoah,” &c. *No land is claimed. It is doubtful, whether a writ of right lies for a house, eo nomine; though it lies for a messuage:-in Co. Hitt. 56, b. it is said, a prsecipe lies not de domo, but de messuagio. But if the writ lies for a house, that term includes the orchard, garden, and curtilage, and thus it may include an acre or more of land besides what the house itself covers. Co. Hit. Ibid, and 5, b. Therefore, in a- writ of right for a house, it is necessary to describe the boundary; else it cannot be known, what and how much land is claimed with the house. In this case, neither count, plea, replication, nor verdict contains any description of the boundary; and it is impossible to know what or how much land is to be adjudged to the demandants. And this defect, which leaves the very subject in controversy un-ascertained, so that the judgment is as vague and uncertain as the pleadings and verdict, is not cured by the verdict. Beverley v. Fogg, 1 Call 484; Turberville v. Hong, 3 Hen. & Munf. 309. The pleadings are wholly irregular. The plea being in blank throughout, is no better than if the record had stated that the defendant put in the ‘ ‘usual plea ;” in which case it has been held that a repleader should be awarded: Taylor v. Huston, 2 Hen. & Munf. 161. The plea also is framed to join the mise with one demandant only; to contest that single demandant’s right: but there were two demandants. So, in the replication, it is the husband only that joins the mise, though the count claims the subject in right of his wife. And the replication reverses the claims of the parties, stating the de-mandants’ claim as a claim to hold, and the tenant’s as a claim to demand. These also are faults in the pleadings not cured by the verdict: Chichester v. Boggess, 5 Munf. 98.
    
      Stanard, for the appellee.
    The statute for reforming the proceedings in writs of right, gives the forms of the pleadings, but is careful not to confine the parties strictly to those forms: it provides and repeats, as to the writ, the plea, the replication, the charge to the assize, respectively, that each . *shall be “in this form, or to this effect.” We are then to look to the substance. Though the plea, in this case, was left in blank in some respects, yet it was filed by the tenant, and it denies the right to the very subject demanded in the count: it is, therefore, a plea in writing to the count, and defends the right as clearly as if the blanks had been filled up. The other objections taken to the píea and replication, are only objections to bad grammar. As to the alleged defect in the description of the property in the count: the count does not claim a house with the appurtenances, merely; it claims a certain tenement being the one stone house with the appurtenances, whereof the tenant was then in possession &c.. This furnishes the description of the land clainied; namely, the land on which the house stands. " And it is hard to imagine any description of the premises, which would have given the tenant more certain knowledge of the property demanded of him, or which could more certainly identify the subject.
    
      
      Conveyance of Land — Description by Metes and Bounds Unnecessary. — A description by metes and bounds, in a deed conveying land, is not necessary when the premises are well known by name. Lennig v. White, 1 Va. Dec. 887, citing the principal case and Beverley v. Fogg, 1 Call 484.
    
   BROOKE, P.

Upon a review of the cases relied on in the argument for the appellant, it is very apparent, that this court, in its construction of the statute for reforming the proceedings in writs of right, has looked more to the effect of the pleadings, than to the forms prescribed and set out in the statute ; which was fuly warranted by the words of the statute, so often repeated, that the count and the pleadings shall each be in the form there given, “ or to that effect. ” And the inquiry, in all the cases cited, has always been, is there sufficient certainty in the description of the land and premises, demanded in the pleadings, to give full notice to the parties of the controversy on which the mise was joined, so that the judgment or the verdict would be a bar to another writ for the same matter? To require greater strictness in the pleadings, after verdict, would countenance all the dela37s of the view, which embarrassed the proceedings at common law, which had been abolished bjr the statute of 1734, ch. 6, § 10, (4 Hen. stat. at large, p. 402,) and which, among *other inconveniences, the statute for reforming the method of proceeding in writs of right was intended to obviate. At the common law, the tenant by waiving view, and joining the mise, took upon himself a knowledge of the land demanded in the count; and, under the statute, by joining the mise, he waives all objection to the description of the land demanded in the count, if it be sufficient for the purposes before stated. The cases of Turberville v. Long, 3 Hen. 6 Munf. 309, Lovell v. Arnold, 2 Munf. 167, and Bolling v. Mayor of Petersburg, 3 Rand. 563, illustrate this doctrine.

In the case before us, the first objection is to the sufficiency of the description of the tenement demanded in the count: “a certain tenement, consisting of the one stone house with the appurtenances” &c. This, it is insisted, is uncertain, because by a grant of a house eo nomine, the cur-tilage, which is of no fixed extent, will pass, and therefore ought to be described in the pleadings by metes and bounds. Had the count merely demanded a stone house and its appurtenances, it might possibly be within the case of Beverley v. Fogg. But the demand is'of a certain tenement consisting of the one stone house and its appurtenances; limiting the description to the tenement or land on which the house stands. A tenement consisting of the one stone house, I think, can include no more.

The other objections to the blanks in the plea, and to the bad grammar of the replication, cannot be entitled to any weight, after a verdict on the mise joined, which is responsive to the charge to the jury. The tenant could-not be permitted to set aside the verdict for faults in his own plea, especially m a case in which the blanks in the plea are supplied by the charge to the jury.

The other judges concurred, and the judgment was affirmed.