Case Name: BISHOP'S LESSEE v. ARNOLD
Court: Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals of Tennessee
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1824
Citations: 1 Peck 366
Docket Number: 
Parties: BISHOP’S LESSEE v. ARNOLD.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 7
Pages: 294–294

Head Matter:
Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals. Rogersville.
1824.
BISHOP’S LESSEE v. ARNOLD.
In Error. Ejectment.
The surveyor had a right, and it was his duty, to correct his survey, and throw off a part where he had surveyed too much, and the facts may be shown by the proof of witnesses.
The plaintiff’s grant called for 100 acres, and had ten calls of courses and distances, ending where the dispute began, at a hickory, thence two other courses to the beginning, which would exclude the land in dispute; but it was proved that the surveyor actually run west and south, so as to include about forty acres- more, on which the defendant resided, and would make an excess of about sixty acres to the whole quantity called for in the grant.
The chain-bearer proved that at the time the surveyor run the lines to include the forty acres, he did not close his survey, but said he could protract for quantity, and the surveyor showed his field notes, which had been altered so as to accord with the calls of the grant.
It was insisted that the plaintiff was entitled to the land actually marked out, but the Circuit Court charged the jury that if they believed the surveyor had corrected his field notes so as not to include the lands in dispute by lopping off lines actually run, and that such alteration made in the field notes and calls of the grant left out the defendant, they should find for him. Verdict and judgment for the defendant.
Thereupon the plaintiff brought his writ of error to this Court, and after argument,

Opinion:
Per
Haywood, J.
When the consideration of questions of boundary first came before the courts in North Carolina, it was with difficulty the courts could bring themselves to depart from the calls of the grant under the rule of evidence that parol proof should not be received to add to or detract from a written instrument, and the law to this day is, if the grant is intelligible on its face it must not be departed from; but many mistakes having intervened in making surveys, plats, and certificates, and filling up the calls in grants, it was at length permitted to show the mistake by proofs.
In this case there is no mistake in.the grant; the surveyor had a right, and it was his duty, to correct his survey, and throw off a part where he had surveyed too much. This is shown by the grant itself, as well as by the proof of witnesses; therefore the plaintiff had no right to pursue the lines which, on calculating the quantity, were found to include too much.
Judgment affirmed.