Case ID: ohio-st_19/html/0022-01.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

Wellington Hawkins and others v. Abel Jones and others.
    Where a bastard purchased land and survived his mother, the estate did not, at his death, intestate and without issue, pass to the legitimate children of his mother, under section 12 of the act of February 24, 1831, regulating descents, but devolved on his widow, under section 7 of that act.
    The cases of Little v. Latee, 8 Ohio, 289, and Gibson v. McWeely, 11 Ohio St. 131, followed, under the judicial rule of stare decisis.
    
    Error to the district court of Adams county.
    Joseph Curry, a bastard, died on March 20,1851, intestate and without issue, leaving Sarah Curry his widow, and seized of lands which he had acquired by purchase, and not by descent, devise, or deed of gift. After the birth of Joseph Gurry, his mother, Frances Ervin, married "William Hawkins, and, before Joseph’s death, died, leaving legitimate sons and daughters by William Hawkins. After Joseph Curry’s death his widow claimed his lands as his heir-at-law, and sold and conveyed the same by deeds purporting to convey a fee-simple estate therein. She died in August, 1867. The purchasers took possession of the lands, claiming the same under these conveyances from her.
    The legitimate children of Joseph Curry’s mother brought an action against those holding under his widow, to recover possession of the lands, and for an account of rents and profits.
    The statute of descents of February 24, 1831, in force at the death of Joseph Curry, regulates the descent from him.
    Sect 7 provides “that when any person shall die intestate, . . . leaving no one of kin of the blood of such intestate, . . . the estate of such intestate shall pass to, and be vested in the husband or wife relict of such intestate, etc.
    Sec. 12 provides “ that bastards shall also be capable of inheriting, or of transmitting inheritance on the part of their mother, in like manner as if they had been born in lawful wedlock.”
    
      Simeon Mash and James S. Thompson, for plaintiffs in error.
    
      E. P. Evans, T. J. Mullen, and M Bcvrrere, for defendants in error.
   By the Court :

It was held in Little v. Lake (8 Ohio, 289) that where a bastard purchased land and survived his mother, the estate did not, at his death, intestate and without issue, pass to the maternal line, under section 12 of the act of 1831, but devolved on his widow, under section 7 of that act. This construction of the statute has been followed by tills court in Gibson v. McNeely, 11 Ohio St. 131, and Rioted upon, as a rule of real property in this State, for over thirty years; and whatever might be our views as to the correctness of the holding, were the question presented to us as an original one, we do not, at this late day, feel at liberty to disturb it, but are content to abide by the judicial rule of stare decisis.

Judgment affirmed.