Case ID: va_29/html/0404-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Buckner v. Mackay.
    February, 1831.
    (Absent Coalter, J.)
    Sealed Instruments — What Constitutes — Printed Scroll, — To a printed form of a bond, there are put printed stamps or scrolls by way of seals; the hlanhs are filled np; and the instrument executed by the obligors, by signing their names to the •printed stamps or scrolls, which are recognized as their seals in the body of the instrument; this is a sealed instrument within the statute, 1 Rev. Code, ch. 128, § 94.
    Supersedeas to an order of the circuit 'court of Fauquier, made on the motion of Mackay, awarding execution on a forthcoming bond, executed by Thornton and Sinclair his *surety therein, for the delivery, at the day and place of sale, of property taken by the sheriff under a fieri facias sued out by Mackay against Thorn ton.
    The formal parts of the forthcoming bond were printed, and there were stamps printed at the foot of it, to serve the purpose of seals; thus [L. S.] The obligors signed their names opposite to these stamps; and the body of the bond stated, that it was sealed with their seals. And the question was, whether this was a sealed instrument, so as to make it good as a forthcoming bond? in other words, whether the printed stamps were scolls, affixed by the obligors, by way of seals, within the meaning of the statute, that ‘ ‘any instrument to which the party making the same shall affix a scroll, by way of seal, shall be adjudged to be of the same force and obligation, as if it were actually sealed?” 1 Rev. Code, ch. 128, '£ 94, p. 510.
    Stanard and Briggs, for the plaintiff in error.
    Harrison, for the defendant.
    
      
      SeaIed Instruments — Scroll—Necessity for Recognition. — It is well settled in Virginia that in cases of contracts which may be. indifierently, simple contracts or sealed instruments, the fact that a scroll is aifixed to the name of the maker does not make it a sealed instrument unless there be a recognition of the seal in the body of the instrument. Bradley Salt Co. v. Norfolk, etc., Co., 95 Va. 462, 28 S. E. Rep. 567, citing-tile principal case. For further information on this subject, see discussion in foot-note to Parks v. Hewlett, 9 Leigh 511; foot-note to Clegg v. Lemessurier, 15 Gratt. 108; monographic note on “Bonds” appended to Ward v. Churn, 18 Gratt. 801; mono-graphic note on "Heeds” appended to Flott v. Com., 12 Gratt. 564.
      To the point that the act of 1788 (1 Rev. Code, ch. 128, § 94, p. 510) is in affirmance of the common law of Virginia, the principal case and Jones v. Logwood, 1 Wash. 42. were cited in Parks v. Hewlett, 9 Leigh 513.
    
   PER CURIAM.

The construction of this statute, which was in affirmance of the immemorial usage of Virginia, and consequently of our common law, has uniformly been, and the practice accordingly, that the recognition by the party executing the instrument, that any scroll annexed to his name is his seal, whether put there by him or another, before or after the execution of the instrument, constitutes it his deed; in analogy to the common law, which holds, that the acknowledgment of a seal of wax, as his seal, by the party executing an instrument, makes it his deed, no matter when or by whom the seal was attached to the paper or parchment. Here, the parties executing the instrument in question, declare in writing, that the scrolls annexed to their names, or rather to which their names are annexed, put there by the printer who prepared the instrument in blank, are their seals. The judgment is affirmed.