Court Opinion

ID: 9825299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:32:22.434295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:40.505293
License: Public Domain

SOMERVILLE, J.
The bill of complaint is filed by a widow for the assignment of dower in her deceased husband’s lands. The respondent’s demurrer to the bill was overruled, and the appeal from that decree presents a single question, viz. whether the original jurisdiction of courts of chancery for the assignment of dower was taken away by section 1359 of the Code of 1852 (now section 7437, G’ode 1923), in the absence of some special ground of equity jurisdiction.
In Owen v. Slatter, 26 Ala. 547, 551, 62 Am. Dec. 745, decided in 1855, this question was answered in the negative, and that decision has been consistently followed (Yarbrough v. Yarbrough, 200 Ala. 184, 75 So. 932, citing all the cases), until the case of Dudley v. Rye, 209 Ala. 164, 95 So. 810 (1923), wherein the court overlooked the previous line of decisions, and held that a bill in chancery for the assignment of dower was subject to demurrer, unless it presented some other independent equity, since the probate court had jurisdiction in all cases where the assignment could be made by metes and bounds, under section 3825 of the Code of 1907 (section 7438, Code 1923).
We adhere to the rule declared in Yarbrough v. Yarbrough, supra, and the cases cited therein, and the case of Dudley v. Rye, supra, will be overruled. The decree of the circuit court in equity will be affirmed.
Affirmed.
All the Justices concur.