Claiborne v. Henderson
Supreme Court of Virginia
On cross appeals from a decree of the Superior Court of Chancery for the Richmond District, pronounced by the late Judge of that Court.
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On cross appeals from a decree of the Superior Court of Chancery for the Richmond District, pronounced by the late Judge of that Court. This cause involving the important question whether a widow was dowable of an eauitable estate of inheritance before the operation of our act of Assembly, expressly giving her dower in a trust estate, (1) which has been determined in the negative, in England, as Blackstonc says, “more from a cautious adherence to some hasty precedents than from any well grounded principle,” (2) was argued on the 25th, 27th, 28th, and 29th of October, 1806, on the general…
1Concurrence
JUDGE CARRINGTON,
who concurred, in. opinion with JUDGE TUCKER, says, (after viewing the testimony in the same light with him,) “thus I think an equitable title to hold the land in fee-simple was vested in the son.”
I consider this case as a strong authority on this point; it was eminently a case of compassion; for the wife was “abandoned to want and distress” by the decree of the Court. No lawyer and no Judge contended that the son had more than an equitable estate in the premises; and the case would probably have been given up on the part of the widow, but for the intervention of the act of…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Griswold v. MaxwellU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York · 1853