Case ID: tenn_28/html/0779-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McKinney, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Harris and Totten vs. Anderson.
    The act of 1830, chap. 90, sec. 11, provides that wills, made in other States, and offered as evidence in the courts of this State, shall be proved according to the laws of the States in which they are made, and certified according to act of Congress. To authenticate such wills, it should appear, by the clerk’s certificate, that the transcript offered is a true copy of the will, and of the probate thereof, from the recordof which he is clerk.
    Ejectment by Anderson against Totten and Harris, and verdict and judgment for the plaintiff; Fitzgerald, J. presiding. The defendants appealed.
    
      A. W. O. Totten, for the plaintiffs in error.
    We object that Anderson’s will was improperly admitted as evidence. The record of probate thereof, in the County Court of Warren, North Carolina, does not appear. The record of probate should appear with the will.
    The certificate of White, clerk, states, that “the foregoing and within is a true copy of A. G. Anderson’s will, as it appears of record,” but does not verify that he has given a copy of the probate, nor does he give any verification as to any probate at all. For this and other reasons, the copy of the pretended will was improperly read. Act 1831, chap. 90, sec. 11, C. & N., 593; act 1844, chap. 187, N. Stat, 241; act 1823, chap. 31, C. & N., 709; acts of Cong., 1790, and 1804.
    
      The record of probate should be certified according to the act of Congress. Act 1844, chap. 187.
    No person for the defendant in error.
   McKinney, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

In deraigning title to the land sued for in this action the plaintiffs’ lessor, on the trial, produced and offered as evidence of title a copy of the last will and testament of A. G. Anderson, purporting, from an endorsement of the clerk thereon, to have been proved in the court of pleas and quarter sessions of Warren county, North Carolina, which the court permitted to go to the jury.

To this, exception was taken by the defendants; first because, as is alleged, the supposed probate appearing upon said copy, is not in fact a transcript of the probate from the record of said court, but only a recital thereof by the clerk; and, second, because the clerk’s certificate extends only to a copy of the will and not to the probate thereof.

The registry act of 1831, chap. 90, sec. 11, by which the present case is governed, provides, that, “all wills executed in other States shall be proved according to the laws of said States, and certified in the manner prescribed by the act of Congress ; and a copy, so certified, shall be registered in the county where the land lies.”

1. If the fact be as assumed in the first exception, a matter upon which, from the record before us, we are unable to pronounce with certainty, it certainly is a valid objection. The clerk ought to certify a literal copy of the probate from the record, to the end that it may appear whether or not the will has been proved in the mode prescribed by law; a recital, by him, of what may be deemed its import, is unauthorized and inadmissible.

2. But, however the fact may be, in regard to this objection, we think the clerk’s certificate is wholly defective. He certifies merely as to the paper purporting to be a copy of the will, that it is a true copy of the will as it appears of record in his office; he should have, in like manner, certified as to the copy of the probate thereof. This he has altogether omitted to do ;• and for this reason the paper ought to have been rejected.

The judgment will be reversed, and the cause be remanded for a new trial.