Case Name: Talbot versus Copeland & al.
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 1850
Citations: 32 Me. 251
Docket Number: 
Parties: Talbot versus Copeland & al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Maine Reports
Volume: 32
Pages: 251–252

Head Matter:
Talbot versus Copeland & al.
In determining the boundaries of land conveyed by deed, if any of the abuttals or calls of the deed are found, they cannot be disregarded, although the others may not be found.
Those which are found, if not inconsistent with each other, are elements in the rights of the parties, and cannot be departed from, to substitute the subordinate description, by courses and distances given in the deed.
Writ of entry, bringing into question the boundaries of a large tract of land, with a claim of $3000, for rents and profits. The deed, under which the demandant claimed, conveyed “ the township of Crawford, bounded on the north six miles by townships No. 21 and 16 ; on the east six miles by townships No. 15 and 16; on the south six miles by township No. 19, and on the west six miles by townships No. 25 and 26, containing 23,040 acres,” excepting certain specified lots.
The verdict was for the tenants.
The demandant filed an exception to the ruling of the Judge, and also a motion for a new trial, alleging that the verdict was against law, evidence, the weight of evidence and the instructions, given by the court to the jury.
The evidence reported was very copious, and the motion as well as the exception was argued strenuously and ably by —
J. Lowell and J. Granger, for the demandant,
and by Downes & Cooper, for the tenants. As motions for new trial commonly involve more of controversy as to the construction and weight of testimony, than as to principles of law, the insertion of them in this work is deemed railer discretionary than imperative. Though as to this motion, it was designed, at first, from the ample minutes of the Reporter, to present, in a condensed form, the argument and the decision, it was soon found, that these, with the testimony on which they were founded, would absorb a, portion of the book more than commensurate with the legal information to be derived from them.
The instruction excepted to was, that “ as the deed, under which the demandant claimed, referred to no specific objects other than surrounding tracts or townships, the lines should be so run as to answer all these abuttals or calls; but if it cannot be so run, then the next certain order of description should be resorted to ; to wit, the distances mentioned in the deed, and the township should be run out six miles square.”
The questions arising upon the motion for a new trial were very elaborately and clearly examined and discussed by the Chief Justice, and the decision of the court was, that the motion was not sustained.
The judgment of the court upon the exceptions was also ^announced by

Opinion:
Shepley, C. J.,
orally.—The instructions excepted to authorized the jury to disregard such calls of the deed as they could meet, unless they could find and meet all the calls. In this there was error. It is not pretended that the calls, which the jury could meet, were inconsistent with each other. They could not then rightfully be set aside. They were elements in the rights of the parties. The jury were permitted to say, if we cannot meet all the calls, we will disregard all, and run the tract by the courses and distances merely. Such a. mode is at variance from established rules.
Exception sustained.