Case ID: nc_1-3/html/0370-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.—\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hudson Hughes et alias vs. The Trustees of the University.
    The complainants filed their bill in the Court of Equity for Salisbury district, at March term, 1800. By the bill it appears, that the complainants Hudson and Joseph, in the year 1795, purchased a tract of land of the defendants, who sold by Adlai Osborn their commissioner and attorney, which land was claimed by them as having been the property of Henry E. M'Culloch, consequently confiscated, and by the act of Assembly passed in the year 1794, granted to and vested in the defendants; that in August, 1795, the said Adlai Osborn, in the name of the defendants, executed to them a deed, sufficient in legal form to convey to them the land in fee simple ; and that they at the same time, with Edward Yarborough their security, executed a bond to the defendants for the payment of the purchase money of the said land. The bill then charged that the land had been sold by the State to one Brandon, before the passage of the said act, who before that time had, by petition, prevailed on the Legislature to dissolve the contract, by releasing him from the payment of the purchase money, and receiving the land again, to the use of the State. That the defendants had commenced an action at law on the said bond, and threatened to compel the complainants to pay the said purchase money, and insisted that the land to sold to them, was not within the meaning and operation of the said act, and that the defendants had no title to the same. The complainants prayed an injunction, &c. until the question on the operation of the act should be judicially settled, &c. An injunction was accordingly granted; and the usual proceedings being had, the bill was taken pro confesso, and the cause heard on the bill.
   By the Court.—

By the act of 1794, it is contemplated that the remnant of confiscated property unsold by the commissioner, might contribute to furnish means for a permanent establishment, &c. Then it gives it all the lands not heretofore sold, &c. We are of opinion that the purchase by Brandon being relinquished before the grant to the Trustees, and the estate being then in the State, that it passed with the other property, and was vested in the Trustees in the same manner, and that they had as good a right to convey it, as they had to convey any other confiscated property.