Case ID: va_16/html/0456-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Addison and Wife v. Core’s Administrator.
    Wednesday, May 8th, 1811.
    
    Statute of Descents -Construction, — The .true construction of the 7th sect, of the act “reducing- into one the several acts directing the course of descents,” as to the case of an infant, is, that if there he no mother, &c., and the estate was derived from the father or mother, the inheritance shall not he divided into moieties, hut the whole shall go to the kindred of that parent from whom the estate was derived. And the law was the same as to the distribution of unbequeathed personal estate belonging to infants, who died between the 1st of October, 1793, and the 22d of January, 1802.
    James Core, of the county of Northampton, departed this life, on the 28th day of May, 1795, an infant, intestate, and without issue, (having neither father nor mother living, nor sister, nor brother, nor their descendants,) possessed of sundry slaves and other personal estate in his-own right, the whole of which came to him from his father.
    Kendall Addison and Palmer his wife, who was the only sister of the mother of the said infant, brought their suit in chancery, in the county court, against John Core, the administrator, for an account and distribution of the said slaves and other personal property ; contending that the same ought to be divided into two moieties, one of which should be allotted to the paternal, and the other to the maternal kindred.
    The defendant filed his answer, insisting that the whole of the said property belonged to the kindred on the part of the father, by virtue of the acts of assembly relative to distributions and descents.
    Upon argument, the county court dismissed the bill with costs ; and their decree was affirmed by the late high court of chancery.
    In April, 1806, a motion was made by the complainants to the superior court of chancery for the Williamsburg district, for leave to file a bill of review for error apparent on the face of the decree ; which motion being overruled, they appealed to this court.
    Wickham, for the appellants,
    admitted that the case presented the same point as that decided in Tomlinson v. Dilliard, 3 Call, 105, and Dilliard v. Tomlinson, 1 Munf. 183.
    *Nicholas, for the appellee.
    
      
       Statute of Descents — Construction.—See foot-notes to Dilliard v. Tomlinson, 1 Munf. 183; Templeman v. Steptoe, 1 Munf. 339.
    
   Thursday,-May 9th. The president pronounced the opinion of the court, that this case was settled by the cases above mentioned, and that of Templeman v. Steptoe, 1 Munf. 339.

The decree was therefore affirmed.