Case ID: mass_6/html/0268-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* Samuel Dow, Jun. versus John Warren.
    In pleading a common recovery as sued to the use of the tenant in tail, who was tenant to the prtztipe, it is not necessary to aver that the indenture to lead the uses was executed by him, as the recovery would have the same effect without the indenture, as that was intended to give it
    Nor is it necessary to show that the attorney of record of the tenant was legally constituted by him ; such a fact can only avail in error to reverse the common recovery.
    When the statute of limitations once begins to run against an heir in tail, no subsequent event can interrupt its progress; and when it has run twenty years, no formedon can afterwards be maintained.
    
      This was an action of formedon in descender, sued by the demandant, as heir in tail, upon the gift of Joseph Maylem to his son Mark Maylem, and the heirs of his body; and a descent is derived from him, through his eldest son, Joseph Maylem, to the demandant.
    The second plea pleaded by the tenant in bar is a common recovery, suffered and executed by the last-named Joseph Maylem, to his own use, in fee simple, agreeably to certain indentures to lead the uses; and the plea avers the recovery to have been had with single voucher, Benjamin Gridley being the demandant, and the same Joseph Maylem the tenant, who appeared by Anthony Bracket, his attorney.
    To this plea there is a special demurrer, which is joined. One case of demurrer is, that it does not appear by the plea, that the lands demanded and those described in the common recovery are the same.
    But the Court observed that this cause was founded on a mistake ; as the plea avers that the lands described in the indenture and the lands now demanded are the same, and that the recovery was had of the same lands described in the indenture.
    Another cause assigned is, that it does not appear that the said indentures were ever executed by the said Joseph Maylem, or acknowledged, or recorded.
    To this it was said by the Court, that as the recovery is averred to have been for the use of the tenant in tail, and as he was tenant to the preecipe, it seems to be immaterial whether there were any indentures to lead the uses or not; for the indentures pleaded had no other effect than the law would have given to the recovery, if no uses had ever been directed or declared.
    The other causes are, that it does not appear that the same Maylem ever appeared to the writ in person, or by any attorney duly appointed; it not appearing that Anthony * Bracket, the attorney on the record, had ever been le- [ * 329 ] gaily constituted the attorney of the said Maylem in that cause. Upon this objection, the Court observed that it went to the record of the common recovery ; and if it was well founded, and the demandant could avail himself of it, he must sue his writ of error, to reverse the common recovery; for the record could not be impeached collaterally, in this action, for an error of this nature.
    In opening the pleadings, it was stated and admitted by the parties, that the tenant in the common recovery had afterwards, but more than forty years since, discontinued the estate tail by his conveyance, admitting the recovery to be void; and that, on his death, the heir in tail, on whom the right descended, was of full age, and not within any of the savings in the limitation of actions of formedon.
    
    
      
      J. T. Austin for the demandant.
    
      Jackson for the tenant.
   The Court thereupon observed that this objection was fatal But the counsel for the demandant urged that each successive heir in tail was entitled to bring his action of formedon at any time within twenty years after his right accrued. The Court denied this position to be law,, and said that it had been formerly settled in the case of Hart vs. Hart, in Middlesex, that when the statute of limitations had once begun to run against the heir in tail, no subsequent event could interrupt its progress; and after it had run twenty years, no formedon could afterwards be maintained.

The demandant therefore moved for, and had leave to discontinue.