Case ID: va_20/html/0743-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "JUDGE ROANE", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Ferguson v. Franklins.
    Decided, Feb. 20th, 1819.
    -a. Conveyance of Land — Grantor an Allen — Trustee— Bífeet. — A sale and conveyance of land by a trustee, can not be set aside on the ground that he was an Alien when the deed was made to him, and when he conveyed land to the purchaser.
    
      i, Real Bstate —Sale et Public Auction — Place of Sale. — If a tract of-land, being advertised to be sold on the premises, be sold, not immediately on the premises, but within eighty yards of the dwelling house, within full view of it, & about fifteen or twenty yards from the boundary line; it being believed by some present that they were on the premises; such sale, being regular in other respects, and no fraud appearing, is not to be set aside.
    It appeared by a special verdict in this -case, (which was an action of Ejectment in the Superior Court of Campbell County, brought by John Eerguson against Edmund and Thomas Franklins,) that the defendants, being seized and possessed of the land in controversy, conveyed it by two deeds of trust, (found in hasc verba) to a certain Andrew White, to secure the payment of a debt to Higginbotham, Brown & Co. ; the Deeds empowering the said trustee to sell the land at public auction for ready money, “having previously advertised the time and place of said sale at least four weeks:” that the trustee, after duly advertising, sold the said land to satisfy the debt, at public auction, “not at the house of Edmund Franklin, nor on the premises agreeably to the advertisement, (which was set out at large,) but within eighty yards of the said house within full view of it, at the edge of the enclosure of Edmund Franklin, and without his land line about fifteen or twenty steps; and it was believed by some present that they were on the premises;” that, at the said sale, the lessor of the plaintiff became the purchaser at the price of $1000, which he paid the trustee, who paid it over to Higgin-botham, Brown & Co., and conveyed the land to the said purchaser by deed of bargain and sale, found in haec verba: — -but that the trustee Andrew White was an alien, when the deeds were made to him, and when he-conveyed the land.
    Upon this verdict, the Superior Court gave judgment for the defendants; whereupon the lessor of the plaintiff obtained a Writ of Supersedeas from this Court, al-ledging error in said judgment; 1st, “because, altho’ it is true that the trustee was an alien, yet he had no escheatable interest in the subject, and was merely the organ, mutually chosen by the parties, to secure the payment of the debts for which the deeds of trust were given : — 2d, because the title of the trustee, such as it was, could only have been divested under the laws of this State, *by process of escheat, even if it were escheatable; and no such process had ever been instituted— 3d, “because, altho’ it is true that the sale was not immediately on the premises, yet it was sold within eighty yards of the dwelling house, within full view of the same and of the premises, and with every advantage of examination, which the deeds and the advertisement under them contemplated ; so that a substantial 'compliance with the deeds and advertisement took place, so as to meet the views of the parties, and answer the purposes of justice.”
    Wickham and Stanard for the plaintiff in error.
    Wrn. Hay, jr. for the defendants.
   February 20th 1819,

JUDGE ROANE

pronounced the Court’s Opinion that the Judgment be reversed, and entered for the plaintiff.