Sealy v Brathwaite (Forte Claimant)

• Jurisdiction: Barbados
• Judge: Rocheford, J.
• Judgment Date: 22 January 1980
• Neutral Citation: BB 1980 HC 4
• Docket Number: No. 376 of 1977
• Date: 22 January 1980
• Court: High Court (Barbados)

Supreme Court - High Court

Rocheford, J. (Acting)

No. 376 of 1977

Sealy

and

Brathwaite (Forte Claimant)

Mr. W.O.O. Haynes for the plaintiff and defendant.

Mr. Milton Pierce for the claimant.

Real property - Title — Foreclosure.

Facts: This action arose out of a foreclosure suit — The claimant filed a claim to the mortgaged land stating that her great grandfather by his will devised the land to his daughter, her grandmother — Whether the claimant's grandmother had even been in possession of the land — Finding that there was no evidence before the court to explain how possession could have been obtained by the persons under whom the defendant claimed — That there was no evidence that the executor of the claimant's great grandfather performed his duty as an executor otherwise than in strict accordance with the law.

Held: The claimant's grandmother was never in possession of the land in question and that she was at no time the owner of the land — Claim dismissed.

1 Rocheford, J. (Acting): This action arose out of a foreclosure or title suit. On the 20th February, 1976 the defendant Cyril Arlington Brathwaite mortgaged ALL THAT certain piece or parcel of land situate at Benthem's in the parish of Saint Lucy and Island aforesaid formerly stated to contain by admeasurement Six Perches but found by recent survey to contain Two thousand nine hundred and sixty-five square feet (inclusive of a portion of a Road Reserve twenty-one feet wide or thereabout abutting and bounding on lands now or late of Fairfield Plantation on lands of the estate of one Griffith deceased but now of Mrs. G. Griffith (on two sides) and on the Public Road or however else the same may butt and bound together with the messuage or Dwelling house to the plaintiff Marcia Onetta Sealy. On the 30 ^th May 1977 the plaintiff instituted foreclosure proceedings.

2 On the 2nd August 1977 the claimant Hyacinth Forte filed a claim to this land in which she stated that James Griffith by his Will, devised this land to his daughter Morgie Anna Griffith who was her grandmother.

3 The claimant called no witnesses. She stated in her evidence that she was born on the 12th March, 1920, and that James Griffith was the owner of this Iand during and prior to the year 1883 and that he died in 1883 after having made his last Will and Testament in which he gave this land to his daughter the claimant's grandmother Morgie Anna Griffith-Greaves and appointed...