Case ID: njl_9/html/0303-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The State vs. Lewis Parker.
    The Orphans’ Court has no authority (under the 12th section of the act, .Rev. Laws, 779) to appoint commissioners to make division of lands held between the heirs of a tenant in common on the one part, and the person who had been the tenant in common with their ancestor on the other part.
    
      This was a certiorari to the Orphans’ Court of the county of Burlington, to remove a division of real estate made on the application of the heirs of George Parker.
    In the term of May, 1826, Lydia Parker, as guardian of Margaret Parker, George Parker and Lewis Parker, children of George Parker, made application by petition to the Orphans’ Court of the county of Burlington, setting forth that the said George Parker died intestate, seized of real estate *243] in the *township of Nottingham, in the county of Burlington, whereby the same descended to the petitioners, and they then held one half of the same, undivided, as tenants in common with Lewis Parker, Sen.; and that by reason of the minority of the petitioners no division by agreement could be made; and praying a decree for a division between the petitioners and the said Lewis Parker, in metes and bounds, to be held severally in manner prescribed by law. The court thereupon appointed commissioners, who made a division between the petitioners and the said Lewis Parker, which was confirmed by the Orphans’ Court in the term of August, 1826.
    
      Wall, for Lewis Parker, assigned for error—
    1. The want of jurisdiction in the Orphans’ Court.
    2. The commissioners were not sworn.
   By the Court.

The jurisdiction of the Orphans’ Court over the partition of real estate is given and defined by the twelfth and thirteenth sections of the act of 1820. Rev. Laws 779. And the remark js so obvious as to make the mention of it almost superfluous, that those courts have jurisdiction over this matter onty so far as it is expressly given to them. The thirteenth section relates to real estate held by devise undivided, and needs not here be further adverted to. The twelfth section gives jurisdiction, any one or more of the heirs being under the age of twenty-one years, to direct partition of real estate, held undivided by reason of descent, among the heirs or persons claiming under them, in such shares and proportions as they may ho entitled to under the laws directing the descent of real estates; and extends only to authorize “ the metes and bounds of each child’s or other heir’s share ” to be ascertained by the commissioners whom the court are to appoint. The application in the present case was for partition betwpea heirs on the one part, and him on the other part who had been a tenant in common with their ancestor, and the division was accordingly made by the commissioners. The case presented by the application, was not within the jurisdiction of the Orphans’ Court. They had not authority by the statute to make an order for such partition.

Let the partition he set aside.