Case ID: h-mch_3/html/0433-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      The Court\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GENERAL COURT,
    MAY TERM, 1796
    
    Henry Oneale against William Lodge.
    THIS was an action of covenant for the sale of a tract of land, at 45s. per acre. The defendant pleaded payment; general replication, and issue joined.
    Mason, for the plaintiff,
    at the trial of the cause, showed that the tract of land sold contained 98 acres cleat*of elder surveys. That the contract for the sale was made on the 1st of August, 1789, and that on the 29th of the same month, after the date of the deed, 75l. was paid in part payment for the land.
    Gantt, for the defendant,
    produced a deed which had a receipt thereon endorsed for the consideration money expressed in the deed for the said land sold; and then moved the court to instruct the jury that the receipt on the deed, and the acknowledgment of payment in the body of the deed, was conclusive evidence of payment.
   The Court

refused to give' the direction, and said it was evidence but of the lowest order, because it was but the mere formal part of a deed, and it was every day’s practice to have a receipt on the back of the deed, when, perhaps, nine times in ten, there was not a shilling paid.