Court Opinion

ID: 9809815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:28:34.269982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:22:47.210562
License: Public Domain

Stacy, O. J.,
dissenting: The decision in this case is put upon the ground that the deed from Sabriana Blount to A. C. Blount, her husband, is void because the officer who took the private examination of the wife failed to state in his certificate of probate, as required by C. S., 2515, “that the same is not unreasonable or injurious to her.” The officer did certify, however, “that this deed is not ingerious to the -said Sabrina Blount,” meaning, of course, that the same is not injurious to her. But it is said in the opinion of the Court: “The statute requires that both conclusions shall be stated in the certificate”; that is, the conclusions that the deed is not unreasonable and is not injurious to her are both required to be stated in the certificate. I respectfully dissent from this position and from the judgment to be rendered in this case, for two reasons: First, because the double requirement, as I understand it, is not so nominated in the statute; and, second, because, in my opinion, the certificate attached to the deed in question complies substantially with the requirements of the law. Dundas v. Hitchcock, 12 How. (U. S.), 256, 13 L. Ed., 978.
Apparently, in all the cases dealing with the subject, certainly in all those cited in the Court’s opinion, where the probate is held to be defective, no effort whatever was made by the officer to comply with the requirements of the statute, while the doctrine of substantial compliance, in relation to cognate statutes, or those dealing with the forms of probate, is fully upheld in a number of decisions. Bank v. Canady, 187 N. C., 493; Bailey v. Hassell, 184 N. C., 451; Withrell v. Murphy, 154 N. C., p. 89.
No benefit would be derived from an extended discussion of the question presented by the appeal. I think the word “or,” as used in the statute, means or, while the Court says it means and. That is all there is in the case. A multiplicity of words would not make the two positions any clearer. The statement in Kearney v. Vann, 154 N. C., 311, cited as authority for the court’s position, is obiter. Even in cases of doubtful construction, the rule of law is, that the court should uphold an instrument, if, by reasonable construction, it can be done. "TJt res magis .valeal quam pereat.” A maxim meaning “That the thing may prevail, rather than be destroyed.” Applied in R. R. v. Olive, 142 N. C., 257, and Foil v. Newsome, 138 N. C., 115.
In my opinion the judgment should be affirmed without modification.