Court Opinion

ID: 9808184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:29:52.768242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:46.317880
License: Public Domain

ClaRic, O. J.,
concurs on the ground that the Court erred in refusing plaintiff’s prayer, and also in instructing the jury that the certificate of the privy examination could be set aside by “the preponderance of the evidence.” In Benedict v. Jones, 129 N. C., 470, it is held .that the presumption of the correctness of such certificate must be overcome “by clear, strong .and convincing evidence.” It would shake the security of titles if it could be done on a mere preponderance, which a jury might, in their gallantry to the sex, give to the testimony of a young and pretty woman over the bare certificate of the justice, who may be dead, and when the holder of the property, at a third or fourth conveyance, perhaps, may'not, and probably would not, be able to get corroborating testimony to support the certificate of the officer. Here the officer was living, but the rule as to the amount of evidence to overcome his certificate is the same.
In the adjoining States to this — Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, as well as in many others — privy examination has long ago been abolished as a useless formality, and the execution of a deed by a married woman is binding on her to the same extent, and can be set aside only upon the same proof, as if she were a single woman. It is hardly reasonable to suppose that a woman, upon becoming married, ipso facto, reverts into the helplessness of non sui juris, a class whose only other members are “infants, idiots, lunatics and con*346victs.” The sole ground for such suggestion is tbe assumed possibility of “undue control or duress” by the husband. But in this case there is no allegation nor proof of such undue influence by the husband, and it is noteworthy that if there had been it would not vitiate the deed unless it had been participated in by the grantee, or he had notice thereof before receipt of the deed. Revisal, sec. 956. This section makes the execution of a deed by a married woman, when there is a certificate of privy examination, unimpeachable, except for “fraud, duress or undue influence,” participated in or known by the grantee, and absolutely unimpeachable in the hands of' an innocent purchaser, though from a grantee who participated in or had knowledge of such fraud, duress or undue influence.
Originally, the privy examination was by the court, and the certificate was equivalent to a judgment of fine and recovery, and hence unimpeachable, except as any other judgment would be. Woodbourne v. Gorrell, 66 N. C., 82. When the certificate was transferred to a single justice of the peace out of court, the courts were compelled to hold that the certificate was subject to inquiry and impeachment. Jones v. Cohen, 82 N. C., 15. This iñaking titles insecure, the statute (Revisal, sec. 956) intervened and allowed impeachment of the deed of a married woman, notwithstanding the privy-examination, but only when there is duress, fraud or undue-influence, participated in or known to the grantee, thus putting her deed now practically on the same footing as would be the case if the privy examination were abolished.