UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

HOGAN V. KURTZ, 94 U. S. 773 (1876)

94 U. S. 773

U.S. Supreme Court

Hogan v. Kurtz, 94 U.S. 773 (1876)

Hogan v. Kurtz

94 U.S. 773

Syllabus

1. The Act of Congress approved June 1, 1870, 16 Stat. 146, abolishing all fictions in ejectment within the District of Columbia, does not abolish that action nor convert it into a writ of right.

2. Uninterrupted, open, visible, exclusive, and notorious adverse possession by the defendant, under a claim of title for twenty years is a good defense unless the other party is within some one of the exceptions contained in the statute of limitations, and proof of such possession is admissible under the general issue.

3. The statute of limitations, when it begins to run, will not be arrested by any subsequent disability, and a party claiming the benefit of its exceptions can only avail himself of the disability which existed when the right of action first accrued.

4. This action of ejectment was brought more than three years after the passage of the Act of March 3, 1865, the second section whereof, 13 Stat. 532, abrogated all exceptions in favor of parties beyond the District of Columbia, which, under then-existing laws, might be replied or relied on in any action or proceeding brought in said District, with a saving as to actions then pending, or which might be brought within three years thereafter. The exception of those laws in favor of such of the grantors of the plaintiff as were foreigners and lived beyond seas was no longer in force.

The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.


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