{
  "id": 8649579,
  "name": "J. C. CARTER et. al. Trustees of the SWAN ISLAND CLUB v. W. H. WHITE et. al.",
  "name_abbreviation": "Carter v. White",
  "decision_date": "1888-09",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "30",
  "last_page": "35",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "101 N.C. 30"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C.",
    "id": 9292,
    "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
  },
  "cites_to": [
    {
      "cite": "3 D. & B., 14",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "D. & B.,",
      "opinion_index": 0
    },
    {
      "cite": "4 Dev., 417",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Dev.",
      "case_ids": [
        11276721
      ],
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/nc/15/0417-01"
      ]
    },
    {
      "cite": "2 D. & B., 246",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "D. & B.,",
      "opinion_index": 0
    }
  ],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 490,
    "char_count": 9797,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.518,
    "pagerank": {
      "raw": 4.716408318215882e-07,
      "percentile": 0.9291190335807222
    },
    "sha256": "06770f14e414341480979a53c9807504ecb8f06e0efeb95a675ee6a3ec2c4d51",
    "simhash": "1:0b20a0d72646e5a6",
    "word_count": 1654
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:51:11.114152+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "J. C. CARTER et. al. Trustees of the SWAN ISLAND CLUB v. W. H. WHITE et. al."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Smith, C. J.,\n(after stating the case.) The statute which authorizes the present action provides that any person \u201caggrieved by any grant or patent issued or made since July 4, 1776, to any other person against law, or obtained by false suggestion, surprise or fraud,\u201d may proceed in the Superior Court to have the same \u201c repealed and vacated,\u201d and as the complaint must allege, so the evidence must show, that the obnoxious patent issued against law, or was procured under the circumstances and conditions pointed out, or the action must fail. In the construction of the statute it is held that the remedy is open only to a senior against a junior grantee, inasmuch as none can be aggrieved unless he has an interest in the subject matter of the obnoxious grant when it issued, which a junior grantee has not, and that the purpose is to remove a cloud overshadowing a previously acquired title. O\u2019Kelley v. Clayton, 2 D. & B., 246, following the elaborate discussion of the point by Daniel, J., delivering the opinion in Crow v. Holland, 4 Dev., 417. It is not less necessary that the junior grant, sought to be vacated, must have issued \u201c against law, or been obtained by false suggestion, surprise or fraud,\u201d to invalidate it as a conveyance, and put it out of the way of the aggrieved party. Miller v. Twitty, 3 D. & B., 14.\nThe facts ascertained by the Court clearly fail to bring the case within the operation of the law, so as to entitle the plaintiffs to the relief they demand, unless, as their counsel maintain, their grant embraces the whole of Walker\u2019s Island, with its water boundaries, and is not circumscribed by the specific lines that follow the calls and general designation of that Island. For it is definitely found that if those lines are pursued the defendants\u2019 land lies wholly outside of them, and as there is no interference, the plaintiffs have no claim to possess an interest in the latter, and cannot, in the sense of the law, be an aggrieved party. \u25a0\nSo the solution of the controversy depends entirely upon the construction to be put upon the descriptive terms contained in the grant to Dunton. Does the call of the land as \u201cknown by the' name of Walker\u2019s Island,\u201d notwithstanding what follows as a specific designation by distinci. and definite boundaries of its extent, control in the construction ?\nWhile the words recited, unconnected with others, will embrace a water bound tract as an island is such, yet. upon every well settled rule of interpretation, subsequent restrictive words, giving and defining its boundaries, must have the effect of qualifying the preceding general designation.\nThe Island determines, as does the mention of the county, \u2022the locality of the land granted; the particufar description, what portion is intended, and thus the general and true intent is reached, and an apparent repugnancy avoided, and the .deed rendered self-consistent.\nIt cannot be necessary to cite authority in the support of :so manifest a proposition, and we refrain from prosecuting the discussion. As then, the land described in the defendants\u2019 grant, is not embraced in that of the plaintiffs; the Hatter have no standing in Court to make complaint of the action of the grantee White, under the statute, as they have no claim to the land granted to him, nor was his grant unlawful.\nThis being the only exception in the record of which we can take notice in the appeal, and it being untenable, it must be declared that there is no error, and we affirm the judgment. Affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Smith, C. J.,"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Mr. L. D. Starke, for the plaintiffs.",
      "No counsel for the defendants."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "J. C. CARTER et. al. Trustees of the SWAN ISLAND CLUB v. W. H. WHITE et. al.\nGrant \u2014 When and how Vacated \u2014 Descriptions in.\n1. A description in a grant as \u201ca tract of land, containing 67\u00a3 acres, lying . and being in the County of Currituck, known by the name of Walker\u2019s Island,\u201d was followed by a further and particular description, giving beginning and the courses and distances of the various lines, which did not include all the land on Walker\u2019s Island; Held, that the specific descriptions by metes and bounds must prevail over ' the general designation, and only the lands embraced in the former passed by the grant.\n2. The remedy provided by The Code, \u00a7\u00a7 3785 and 2787, for persons aggrieved by the issuing of grants is only available to a senior against a junior grantee.\nThis is a civil action to vacate a grant, tried before Montgomery, J., at Spring Term, 1888, of Currituck Superior Court.\nOn December 5, 1832, a grant from the State issued to D. W. Dunton, under whom, by a succession of conveyances, the plaintiffs claim title for a tract of land, described as follows: \u201cA tract of land containing sixty-seven acres and a .half, lying and being in the County of Currituck, known by the name of Walker\u2019s Island, beginning at a creek called Ben Hall, it being the southeast corner of James Brabble and Maxmillian Tatem\u2019s line; thence running south five degrees, west forty-six chains and fifty links, to a post; thence north thirty-eight degrees, west thirty-seven chains, to the marsh; thence along the marsh north seventy-three degrees, west five chains and twenty-five links; thence north fifteen degrees, west one chain, to the mouth of AValker\u2019s Creek; thence along said creek and .James Brabble and Maxmillian Tatem\u2019s line, to the beginning.\u201d\nOn the twenty-first day of June, 1886, a grant issued to the defendant W. H. White, through whom the associate defendants claim for a tract of land therein described, in these terms: \u201cA tract of .land containing twenty-eight and forty-one one-hundredths (28t4oV) acres, lying and being in the County of Currituck, on Walker\u2019s Island, beginning at a stake on the west side of Walker\u2019s Island,\u2022\u25a0running south three and a half degrees, west seven chains, binding the waters on Little Walker\u2019s Creek; thence south nine degrees, east nine chains; thence south thirty-three degrees east, binding the sound seven chains; thence south forty-eight degrees, east along the south side of Walker\u2019s Island, binding the sound five chains; thence south sixty-three, east binding the sound five chains; thence south twenty-two, east binding the sound four chains; thence north sixty and a half, east along the marsh, to the mouth of a little creek, five chains and twenty-five links, to the Dennis Dunton line; thence with said line north thirty-eight degrees, west twenty-six chains; thence north seventy-three degrees, west five chains and twenty-five links; thence north fifteen degrees, west one chain to the beginning.\u201d\nThe complaint based upon the act of 1798, (The Code, \u00a7 278G) alleges that this junior grant embraces land within the boundaries of that issued in 1832 to the estate in which they have succeeded, was procured by the grantee W. H. White, with a knowledge of the fact of the interference, unlawfully \u00e1nd fraudulently, and if permitted to stand is a cloud upon their title, and ought to be removed. To this end the plaintiffs demand that the same be adjudged and declared null and void, and the shade thus cast upon their title dispersed as authorized by the statute.\nThe answer controverts these averments, and the parties consenting to a trial of the facts by the Judge, in place of the jury, he finds, besides the conveyances already recited, these further facts material to the solution of the controversy raised in the pleadings:\nThat Ben Hall Creek, the marsh, Walker\u2019s Creek, Little Walker\u2019s Creek and the Sound, mentioned in the grant, are natural objects and were located; that Walker\u2019s Island contains more in area than 67J a.cres of land, and that the lands covered by defendant\u2019s grant are a part of Walker\u2019s Island \u2014 but are not included within the courses and distances of plaintiffs\u2019 grant.\nIt was admitted by plaintiffs that there was no evidence that the defendants obtained their grant by fraud, false suggestions or surprise, and that there was no evidence that the defendants knew or had reason to know that the plaintiffs, or those under whom they claim, had any grant which covered the land contained in the boundaries of defendants\u2019 grant or that the land contained in defendants\u2019 grant had ever been granted by the State, except the fact that one line of defendants\u2019 grant called for Dennis Dunton\u2019s line.\nThe plaintiffs\u2019 grant was registered.\nUpon the foregoing facts and admissions, the plaintiffs moved for judgment, upon the grounds that the grant under which they claimed conveyed the whole of Walker\u2019s Island, and that the whole of Walker\u2019s Island having been thus granted to them, it was \u201cagainst law\u201d for the defendants to take a grant for the same land.\nThe defendants also moved for judgment upon the grounds, that all of Walker\u2019s Island was not conveyed in plaintiffs\u2019 grant, but only such portion of it as was contained in the boundaries \u201cbeginning at the creek called Ben Hall, the corner of James Brabble and Maxmillian Tatem\u2019s line,\u201d &c., and that as it was found as a fact that the land conveyed in defendants\u2019grant was not within the boundaries of plaintiffs\u2019 grant, tire said land was the subject of entry and grant by the State to the defendants. The defendents further insisted, that the description in the will of D. W. Dunton was too indefinite and vague. The defendants further insisted, that there being no evidence that defendants obtained their grant by fraud, false suggestion, or surprise, or that defendants knew or had reason to know that the land had theretofore been granted to plaintiffs, that it was not \u201cagainst law\u201d for them to procure a grant for the land, even if it had been theretofore granted to plaintiffs; that plaintiffs\u2019 remedy was by action for recovery of land, or for trespass.\nThe Court refused plaintiffs\u2019 motion, and rendered judgment for the defendants.\nPlaintiffs appealed.\nMr. L. D. Starke, for the plaintiffs.\nNo counsel for the defendants."
  },
  "file_name": "0030-01",
  "first_page_order": 62,
  "last_page_order": 67
}