Case ID: root_1/html/0210-03.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

Martin et ux. et al. v. Sterling.
    A man’s granting a greater interest in lands than he hath, passes what interest he has. '
    Action of ejectment for land lying in the town of Cornwall, of wbicb tbe plaintiffs declare that they are seized in fee. Tbe title of tbe plaintiffs was made out in tbis manner. These lauds were originally sequestered for the support of the ministry in said Cornwall. In A. D. 1153 they were leased by a committee of said Cornwall, to a Mr. Sumner, for 999 years; from whom they came by a number of deeds of bargain and sale in fee, to Joseph Ives, father of the woman in whose right this suit is brought and who claim the land as heirs to Joseph Ives aforesaid.
    The defendant is in possession under no title, and plead in bar the original sequestration, the letting for 999 years, and the deeds of sale in fee; which are alleged, to work a forfeiture of said estate, etc. To this plea a demurrer was given,.
    Judgment — That the plea in bar is insufficient.
   By the Court.

A tenant forfeiting his interest by granting a greater estate than he hath in the lands, is borrowed from the feudal system; but by the law of reason and common sense, and the laws of this state, a man’s deed or grant shall be good and valid, for so much as he hath right to, and void for the rest.

The defendant in his plea doth not traverse the seisin of the plaintiffs; he gives color to their title, but sets up none in himself; further he stands in the light of a total stranger: —The long possession of the plaintiffs, and of those under whom they claimed, by deeds of sale in fee, is sufficient against the naked possession of a stranger, even if their title had originated in a disseisin.