Case ID: scl_4/html/0132-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Tkezevaot, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT, COLUMBIA,
    APRIL, 1807.
    Rosamond v. Wm. M’Ilwain and others.
    Where an original grant could not he obtained, and a copy thereof waa allowed in evidence, a copy of the grant was admitted, without any copy of the plat, to which the copy of the grant referred.
    This was an action to try titles to five hundred acres of land, on Long Cain, in Abbeville district. The plaintiff produced a grant from the State to himself, for the land in dispute, dated 5th Decern-ber, 1785. The land was identified ; and it • was proved that the defendants lived on part of the land, not far from each other, and that William M’llwain, one of them, had lived ten years, and upwards, on the land ; and another of them seven or eight years. The defendants claimed under a* grant from the crown of Great Britain to William Livingston; and were allowed to give in evidence a copy of the same, upon making affidavit, that it was not in their power to produce the original. This copy grant was for several thousands of acres of land, and was duly certified by the Secretary of Statp, but was not accompanied by a plat of the land referred to in the grant. To supply the deficiency of a plat, an affidavit was submitted to the court, stating that application had been made at the office of the Surveyor General fer a copy of the plat, but that it could not be procured there ; and that a copy had been obtained from the Register’s office. The court rejected the copy of the plat aforesaid, and also the copy of the grant'; first, because it did not appear that the copy plat was the best evidence which the nature of the case admitted of, inasmuch, as better evidence might have been produced that a copy could not be procured from the Surveyor General’s office, if th'e fact were so ; and, secondly, because the copy grant was not complete without the plat.
    There were other points made in the case, at the trial, upon which also it was brought up on a motion for a new trial; but as the determination did not turn upon any other than the ground above stated, it is unnecessary to notice them.
    The case was tried before Brevard, J., in Abbeville district, and the jury found for the plaintiff.
    The motion was docketed in this court in April, 1806, and was postponed at the instance of defendant’s counsel.
    It was afterwards argued before all the judges, except Bay, J., 28th November, 1898,
    by Bowie, for the- motion, and by Lesley, on the other side.
    The case was continued for consideration until 25th April, 1807, when it was decided in favor of the defendants, and a new trial was ordered .by a majority of the judges, viz., Grimke, Waties, Bay, and Wilds, who were of opinion that the copy grant offered in evidence, without any plat annexed, ought to have been received, as it was duly authenticated, pursuant to act of assembly, and although the grant refers expressly to a plat annexed, yet the plat is not absolutely essential to the grant, as the’land may be identified without having recurrence to the plat; at any rate, the grant is admissible in evidence, without the plat; and provided the locality of the land can be established by any sufficient evidence, the grant will be good.
   Tkezevaot, J.,

was of a contrary opinion. Before the late act of assembly, which allows copies to be admitted in evidence, the grant itself was necessary to be produced; and if it had been produced without the plat to which it refers, for a description of the land, the court would consider it as a mutilated grant, and require the person claiming under it to shew how it had been mutilated. But, however, that might be, the act allows “ any copy of a plat and grant” to be given in evidence; in the case to which the provision applies. These copies are coupled together by a conjunctive conjunction in the .act, and seem both to be required in every case where either can be admitted,-as necessarily conjunct and co-incident. When the legislature admits, or requires any thing to be done, which could not be done, or was not before re(lll*red by the rules of the common law, it must be done in the very way pointed out by the legislature, and cannot be done in any other way. ’To admit a copy of a grant without a copy of the l^at re^erre(^ to 'n die grant, would be extending the privilege farther than the act warrants.