Court Opinion

ID: 9416336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:41:25.846823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:25.797719
License: Public Domain

Mr Chief Justice Marshall
dissented from so much of the foregoing opinion as requires the defendant to show that the lot in the declaration mentioned,, is not within that part of the exr ception contained in the deed from Greenleaf to Morris and Nicholson, which excepts therefrom “ all such squares, lots, lands or tenements as were either conveyed, or sold, or agreed to be conveyed, either by all or either of them, the said James Greenleaf, Robert Morris and John Nicholson, or any of their agents or attorneys, to any person or persons whatever, at any time prior to the said 10th day of July 1795:” because he understood it to impose on the defendant the necessity of proving a negative; and because the fact on which the exception depends, is within the knowledge of the plaintiff and not of the defendant.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the re*316cord from- the circuit Court of the United States for the district of Columbia, hotden in and-for the county of Alexandria, and was argued by counsel.. On consideration whereof, it is the opinion of this Court, that there was error in the circuit court in refusing to instruct the jury that the deed from Greenleaf to Morris and .Nicholson, in the first bill of exceptions mentioned, unaccompanied by any-other evidence, did not show such an outstanding title as was sufficient to bar the plaintiffs recovery in this suit, as in the same-bill of exceptions mentioned. And. it is further the opinion of this court that there was error-in the circuit court in admitting the proceeding in the case of the said James Greenleaf, an insolvent, before the chancellor-of Maryland, in the second bill of exceptions mentioned; and also in instructing the jury that the act of assembly of Maryland of 1798, ch. 64, and proceedings of insolvency aforesaid, did'show á legal title out of the plaintiff, and did preclude a recovery in this suit, on the first count in the plaintiff ?s declaration; and also in refusing to instruct the jury, that under the operation of the proceedings in Maryland and Pennsylva■nja, in the same bill of exceptions mentioned, the legal title to the: "premises in the declaration mentioned, notwithstanding said conveyance, was not divested from the said James Green-leaf, by any thing by the defendant so as aforesaid shown, as in the same bill of exceptions is mentioned. . It is therefore considered and adjudged by the court, that for the errors aforesaid, the judgment of thfe said circuit- court be, and the same is hereby reversed, and the-cause be remanded to the circuit court, vyith .directions to award a venire facias de novo.