Court Opinion

ID: 9808003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:24:15.475791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:11.309621
License: Public Domain

JDouolas, J.,
dissenting from the opinion: I concur in the judgment of the court for the reason first stated in the opinion, that seven years’ possession was not shown prior to the suspension of the Statute in May, 1861, but 1 cannot concur in the opinion that the feme plaintiff is estopped by the proceeding in 1863 to sell the realty in question as the property of John M. Pharr, deceased. The feme plaintiff (Cross) was then an infant with a general guardian, but there is no direct finding that either she or her guardian was ever *331made or became a party to that proceeding. There is no proof whatever of .that fact, and their names nowhere appear in any cf the remaining records. The fact can be gathered only inferentially from the vague hading of the Probate Court that “due notice had been given to all the parties concerned.” This is itself as much a conclusion of law as a finding of fact, the identity of the parties depending entirely upon the opinion of the court as to who were “concerned.” That an infant of tender years, with or without a guardian, should be estopped from asserting whatever rights she may have by such a record, I cannot admit. It appears to us that the femes plaintiffs were nieces and heirs at law of the said John M. Pharr, but this fact is nowhere found in the special proceeding, and, indeed, the very existence of the plaintiffs may then have been unknown to the court.