Case ID: mass_9/html/0333-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      The Chief Justice\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Peter Smith versus Benjamin Smith.
    The Courts of Common Pleas have authority to grant licenses for the sale of the lands of'one non compos mentis.
    
    Entry sur disseisin. The demandant counted on his own seisin within thirty years, and until disseised by * the tenant, who pleaded the general issue, which was joined.
    The cause was tried before the Chief Justice, at the sittings here after the last October term, and a verdict taken for the tenant, subject to the opinion of the Court upon the following question stated in the report of the Chief Justice.
    
    It was admitted, or proved at the trial, that the demandant had been seised within thirty years; that, while so seised, he became non compos mentis, and had a guardian duly appointed ; and that the tenant’s title was under a sale by the guardian, who sold by virtue of a license therefor granted by the Court of Common Pleas for this county.
    This license, when offered in evidence by the tenant, was objected to, on the ground that by law the Courts of Common Pleas were not authorized to grant licenses for the sale of the lands of a person non compos mentis.
    
   The Chief Justice

overruled the objection, and the license was admitted. If the said license ought not to have been admitted in evidence to the jury, the verdict was to be set aside, and a new trial granted, that the tenant might have the benefit of the limitation and settlement act, so called.

Tyler for the demandant.

The statute of 1783, c. 32, authorized botli this Court and the Common Pleas to grant licenses, on suitable occasions, for the sale of the real estates of persons non compos; but the subsequent statute of 1783, c. 38, confines the authority to this Court only. The sale, then, of the lands demanded in this action, having been made under a license from the Common Pleas, was void, and did not affect the demandant’s estate in those lands.

Dana for the tenant.

There are no negative words, or words of repeal, in the latter statute, and they may well stand together. They are both in force; and the jurisdiction still belongs to each of the courts.

The Court,

being of that opinion, directed judgment to be entered for the tenant on the verdict. 
      
      
        Stat. 1807, c. 74.