Mobberly v. Mobberly

Yellott, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from the judgment of the Circuit Court for Howard County in an action of ejectment brought by the appellee as plaintiff below, against John Cook ³⁷⁸ Mobberly, tbe appellant in this Court. Tbe land described in the declaration lies in Frederick County, and the suit was originally instituted in the Circuit Court for that county and subsequently removed. The plaintiff, whose name is Eldred W. Mobberly, offered as evidence a deed, dated the 3rd of June, 1850, from George Smith, trustee, conveying tbe land, now in •controversy, to Eldridge W. Mobberly, and, in connection with said deed, the record of a suit in equity terminating-in a decree for the sale of said land and the appointment of said Smith as trustee to make sale.

He then offered to prove that Eldred W. Mobberly is the identical person named in said deed as Eldridge W. Mobberly ; that there' is no such person as Eldridge W. Mobberly; that the plaintiff is the E. W. Mobberly named in the trustee’s report in said equity record; that the plaintiff paid the purchase- money; that the deed was delivered to him; that Eldred was spelled Eldridge by a mistake of the draughtsman, and plaintiff did not notice the same ; and that, he entered into possession'and so remained until 1857, when he put his son, -the defendant, in possession of said property. The Court admitted the evidence as offered, and to this ruling the defendant excepted. The ground of the objection to the admissibility of the evidence being the apparent dissimilarity between the name of the grantee in the deed and that of the plaintiff in the declaration, the Court clearly committed no error. In the case of Elliott and Wife vs. Knott, 14 Md., 135 , the Court said, “We think the names ‘Penryn’ and ‘Pennyrine’ should be regarded, in the absence of all proof to show they belong to different tracts of land, as applicable to the same, and as idem sonans.” In that case there was the difference of a syllable in the formation of the names; while in this case by dropping the two terminal letters in one of the names we obtain a pronunciation of the one which it is barely possible to distinguish from that of the other.

In the case just ³⁷⁹ cited it must also be observed that the decision of the question involved was put upon the ground of the mere absence of proof tending to show a want of identity; but here there was a direct offer of all the evidence necessary to establish a complete identification. And the conclusion in regard to identity comes with irresistible force when we find Eldred W. Mobberly, the plaintiff in this cause, coming into Court, holding in his hands, as his muniment of title, a deed from the trustee conveying to Eldridge W. Mobberly,