Case ID: serg-rawl_6/html/0143-01.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

Fowler against M'Clurg and others.
    
      Tuesday, September 5.
    Tomakethe deed of a married woman t0 kar_ mast appear4 [¡g^te'ofctgle~ magistrate bewasaeknowsitions ofthe been substantially complied with,
    A certificate merely stating, that she was ex-Taieandapan her husband, and ackno-aUdgedit ^nddledfs insufficient,
    In Error.
    DOWER.
    
      Sarah Fowler, the widow of Alexander Fowler, brought this action, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county, to recover her dower in a lot of ground, &c., in Pittsburgh, of which the defendants were in possession, and of which it was admitted, her husband was seised in fee on 8th October, 1791, when he, and his wife, the tiff, to whom it was admitted he was lawfully married, conveyed part of it to William Earle and James Kenvin. The deed was acknowledged before a iustice of the peace, whose , ° J r certificate ran thus.
    “ Allegheney county, ss.
    
    “ On the 37th February, 1794, Alexander Fowler, and his wife, Sarah Fowler, personally appeared before me, one , , . , r , • , , i tion justices oi the peace in and ior the said county, (she being vf full age, and by me, separate and apart from her husband examined.,) and acknowledged the above instrument of writing as their act and deed, and desired the same might be recorded according to law.”
    On the 9 th June, 1792, the residue of the premises was conveyed by Fowler, and his wife, to the same grantees ; and the material parts of the certificate of the magistrate, before whom the deed was acknowledged, were expressed in the same words as the preceding one.
    The title of Earle and Kenvin, was regularly vested, by mesne conveyances, in the defendants.
    The question upon which the cause turned, was the sufficiency of the certificates of the plaintiff’s acknowledgment of the two deeds above mentioned, which the Court below were of opinion, complied substantially with the requisitions of the act of assembly, relating to the acknowledgment of deeds by married women. To this opinion the plaintiff excepted, and removed the cause to this Court, by writ of error.
    
      .Forward, for the plaintiff in error,
    said, that the act of assembly of 24th February, 1770, sec. 2, required, not only that a married woman who was about to convey her real estate, should be examined separate and apart from her husband, but that the contents of the deed should be made known to her, and that she. should declare she executed it, freely and voluntarily; that it had been several times decided, particularly in the case of Evans v. The Commonxvealth, at May Term, 1818, that unless it appeared on the face of the certificate, that the wife voluntarily consented, her rights were not affected by the deed; and that as the certificates in question, were deficient, not only in that particular, but in not stating that the contents were made known to her, it followed, that her right of dower remained in full force.
    Wilkins, for the defendants in error,
    answered, that the substance of all the cases hitherto decided by this Court, was, that a conveyance by a feme covert, was valid, if it appeared, that the directions of the act of assembly, had been substantially pursued. So the Chirr Justice expressly dedared in Shaller v. Brand.
      
       Here the certificates state, that the wife was examined separate and apart from her husband, from which it may fairly be inferred, that she was made acquainted with the contents of the deeds, and that she declared her unbiassed consent to their execution.
    
      
      
        Purd. Dig. 117.
    
    
      
       Since reported in 4 Serg. & Rawle, 272.
    
    
      
      
         6 Binn. 435,
    
   By The Court.

This case cannot be distinguished from Watson’s Lessee v. Bailey; the principle of which has been affirmed by this Court, in several subsequent cases, particularly in Evans v. The Commonwealth, (Sunbury, June, 1818,) and Hopkins v. Birchall, (Philadelphia, July, 1818.) The act of assembly has not been substantially complied with. It does not appear, that the wife acted without coertion or compulsion of her husband. The judgment must therefore be reversed, and a venire facias de novo awarded.

Judgment reversed, and a venire facias de novo awarded. 
      
       1 Binn. 470, See ante 40,