Court Opinion

ID: 9808381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:36:46.034875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:02.383642
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
dissenting: It was held by a unanimous Court in Fleming v. Graham, 110 N. C., 374, following the intimation in Jones v. Britton, 102 N. C. (on p. 180), that the homestead was a mere “stay of execution, nothing more, nothing less,” and that being an exemption personal to the “owner and occupier” it ceased as to any particular homestead whenever conveyed away by the owner. In Vanstory v. Thornton, 112 N. C. (p. 207), the Court “recalled” the decision in Fleming v. Graham and reverted to the ruling in the older case of Adrian v. Shaw, 84 N. C., 832, which had held that the homestead right was an estate or invisible interest in the lot itself which passed by a conveyance to the purchaser of the land and protected it in his hands. Without adverting to the very full discussion of the subject in Vanstory v. Thornton, it does not seem to me that either that case or Adrian v. Shaw sustains the view taken in the present case, which goes far beyond them. Those cases, indeed, hold that the homesteader could pass the homestead lot to another who could have the homestead i’ight of the grantor vicariously imputed to himself after it had ceased to be the homestead of the grantor by his conveying it away in the manner prescribed by the Constitution.
In the present case the grantor had taken no homestead. He had conveyed the land away without having it allotted. *505Some time after it ceased to be his property, and when he could no longer assert any dominion over it and had no right to even put his foot upon it, he is allowed to have it laid off to him as his homestead. The. sole authority upon which it can be claimed that he can do this is the following clause in the Constitution: “Every homestead * * * to be selected by the owner thereof .* * * owned and occupied by any resident of this State * * * shall be exempt from sale under execution.” Was the defendant Batts the “owner” of the land set apart to him? No. Did he occupy it? No. Was it selected by the “owner”? Not at all. By his solemn deed he had long before ceased to be the owner. By his own act he had long ceased to “ occupy” it. I cannot see that either by the letter or the spirit of the law he has any claim to have it set apart. Clearly this does not come within the terms of the constitutional provision. Nor does it come even within its spirit, which was to keep over a debtor’s head a roof which he needs and not merely to keep his creditors from subjecting to the payment of his debt property which the debtor both by his act and deed has shown to be no longer necessary to provide him a shelter and a home.