Case Name: Bledsoe vs. Wiley's Lessee
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1847-04
Citations: 7 Hum. 507
Docket Number: 
Parties: Bledsoe vs. Wiley’s Lessee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 26
Pages: 507–508

Head Matter:
Bledsoe vs. Wiley’s Lessee.
1. Iii an action of ejectment the plaintiff offered in evidence, a deed, to the certificate of probate of which, the addition of his office was not annexed by the Clerk. Held that the defect was cured by the act of 1839, ch. 26, sec. 9, and that the deed was properly allowed to go to the jury.
2. The act of 1787, ch. 17, sec. 1, \\hich provides that the return of the commissioners in a partition suit shall be made under their seals, is merely directory, and does not vitiate the record of partition where the direction has not been complied with, — the return having been received and made part of the record of the court.
This was an action of ejectment, brought by William L. Wiley and others against Yancey Bledsoe, in the Circuit Court of Carroll county. The case was tried by a jury before the Honorable William Fitzgerald, judge, and a verdict was found for the plaintiff, upon which judgment was entered. The defendant appealed. The facts will be found in the opinion of the court.
Pavatt, for the plaintiff in error.
Hawkins, for the defendant in error.

Opinion:
Green, J.
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an action of ejectment, and the only question the plaintiff in error has made before this court, is, whether a deed from W. Hunt to Isaac Roberts, dated in 1794 and proved and registered in 1796, ought not to have been rejected, because the addition of his office is not annexed to the certificate of probate by the clerk; and whether the record of a partition of lands ought not to have been rejected, because the return of the commissioners is not under their seals.
As to the first question, the act of 1839, ch. 26, sec. 9, provides: "that whenever a deed has been registered twenty years or more, the same shall be presumed to be upon lawful authority, and the probate shall be good and effectual, though the certificate, on which the same was registered, has not been. transferred to the register's books,, and no matter what has been the form of the certificate of probate or acknowledgment. This act cures the defect in the certificate of this deed. - The certificate is in due form except that Andrew Ewing, who certifies the probate, does not state that he? is clerk. This act declares, that where a deed shall have been registered twenty years or more, the same shall be presumed to have been upon lawful authority, and the probate shall be good no matter what has been the form of the certificate. In the present case, the deed has been registered more than fifty years.
It is insisted that the record of partition offered in evidence is inadmissible, because, it does not appear that the return of the commissioners was made under their seals, as the act of 1787, ch. 17, sec. 1, directs. This provision is merely directory, and does not vitiate the record of partition, the return having been received and made part of the record of the court. The verity attached to it is as a record of the court and not upon the question whether it was made under seal.
Affirm the judgment.