You've got to love this affidavit executed in 1928 by a woman who, duly sworn, stated in regard to a certain tract of land that between June 14, 1901 and August 6, 1904 two particular individuals, partners in a ranching operation
>went into possession of said land under said deed [of June 14, 1901] and had possession of the same under said deed until [the conveyance in August 6, 1904].
There is just one tiny, little problem. I'm not referring to the fact that the two partners in the ranching operation owned over 200 tracts of land between them. No, the problem is that the affiant would have been less than one year old on June 14, 1901.
Great, rock-solid affidavit, eh?
was she daughter of one of the men?
HEY this gives me an idea to get me some property! 😉
> was she daughter of one of the men?
>
> HEY this gives me an idea to get me some property! 😉
Yes, she would have been the infant daughter of one of the partners in 1901. Funny how whoever drafted that affidavit neglected to have the affiant state her age, isn't it?
I'm always thrilled to see an affidavit giving detailed information that a reasonable person would have to say that the affiant would have not had knowledge of. It just builds such confidence!
Another out-of-context quote from a fella who has proven he can't adequately interpret section corner tie sheets. Why should we believe you know how to interpret affidavits?
Post the whole affidavit.
Richard Schaut
> Another out-of-context quote from a fella who has proven he can't adequately interpret section corner tie sheets. Why should we believe you know how to interpret affidavits?
Well, isn't the whole point that if a part of the affidavit is as obviously outside the knowledge of the affiant as that bit was - a less than 1-year-old child having personal knowledge of the facts of possession of some particular tract among about 200 that her father and his partner owned, lands aggregating more than 77,000 acres - then the whole affidvait is worthless? I'm thinking that the answer pretty much has to be "yes". :>
You are showing your limited ability to adequately evaluate information.
Affiants can list record information as a basis for establishing context of the following information.
Post the affidavit.
Richard Schaut
Well if a witness lies
> Affiants can list record information as a basis for establishing context of the following information.
Well, if a witness plainly lies about some element of her testimony, the rest of it is of no value. This is particularly true in the case of an affidavit where the witness is no longer available for cross-examination.
Were you thinking that some magical statement could overcome the bit that I quoted? Might you be entertaining the possiblility that the 1-year-old child was some sort of savant who already was intimately familiar with all of the 200 tracts that her father and his partner had purchased a couple of years earlier?
🙂
Well if a witness lies
Is one of your shoes stuck to the floor? You are running around in circles.
Post the affidavit.
Richard Schaut
Sorry, Richard
> Post the affidavit.
Sorry, Richard, this isn't a typing service. If you can't draw the obvious conclusion from what's already been posted, the rest isn't going to help you at all.
There is a whole common class of faulty affidavits of which this is just one type, the one that recites a bunch of concocted stuff outside the knowledge of the witness/affiant. My personal favorite flawed affidavit is that made by some layperson that makes reference to a tract described by metes and bounds written by a surveyor, swearing that so-and-so has been in possession of that tract, but without any hint as to how that layperson even identified the land in the metes and bounds description upon the ground. It just reeks of bogus.
Sorry, Richard
I guess the baby girl was on the crew that set the fence posts, so she should know!
Better yet
> I guess the baby girl was on the crew that set the fence posts, so she should know!
Better yet, I think that she and her family were residing in San Angelo, more than 50 miles away. She must have been both a savant and possibly psychic to have been able to give an affidavit as she later did. There is a whole series of affidavits cluttering up the public records, given by various siblings, affidavits dealing with different tracts in the area and mostly appearing to have been written by some land man for an oil company dangling a lease payment in front of the affiant. "Just sign right here."
I'll post a bit of another lame one that is par for the course.
Better yet
I posted something out of the Manual that I found interesting. A single sentence or two. No biggie, just a forum post, I wasn't trying to make any big statement or anything.
Dang you'd think I committed some kind of sacrilege.
I was the worst sort of apostate manual blasphemer.
some posters make too much of these forum threads. I've gotten hate e-mails; some people need to get a grip. Kent brought up something that's kind of a humorous thing and an obvious problem; I don't understand the need to start getting abusive.
What is the legal status of an affidavit that has gone unchallenged for a long time, even though it has an obvious problem with believability of the affiant's direct knowledge? It certainly would carry less weight than a contradictory one that didn't have such a problem. But is there a rebuttable presumption that it is correct, or what?
> What is the legal status of an affidavit that has gone unchallenged for a long time, even though it has an obvious problem with believability of the affiant's direct knowledge? It certainly would carry less weight than a contradictory one that didn't have such a problem. But is there a rebuttable presumption that it is correct, or what?
Generally, affidavits are given less weight than direct testimony of live witnesses. The obvious reason for this is that the affiant isn't available for cross-examination. In the case of an affidavit such as that one that is simply not plausible, the burden of proof would have to be on the person producing it as evidence of the fact of some matter, I'd think.
For example, the affidavit of possession that simply states that so-and-so has been in "open, notorious, and hostile possession of some tract of land" (essentially legalistic summaries, not statements of some particular facts), but without actually describing the character of the possession in the terms that a witness at trial would have to in order to prove that it was open, notorious and hostile, would tend not to carry much weight with most judges, I'd think.
The other problem with affidavits is that they were so widely abused, oil company land men just whipping up something that looked good and eager recipients of lease payments signing the heck out of them. I'll post an example of a different variation.
