The judgment of the Court below is supported by the decision of this Court in Clement v. Cauble, 2 Jones Eq. 82, where the precise question here made, was discussed with great learning and ability, both by Judges Battle and Nash who concurred in opinion, and by Judge Pearson who dissented. We are now invited by the counsel for the appellants to review the principles of that decision and to overrule them. We by no means wish it to be understood that if the question were an open one, we should not concur with the Court in that case.
But we think that the law as it was then declared, is not now open to doubt or discussion. That decision was made in 1854. In 1859 the precise question was again brought before the Court in Haynes v. Johnson, 5 Jones Eq. 124, and the same principles were declared to be settled law by an unanimous Court; and the Court say, that as the Legislature in 1856 had in the Rev. Code, ch. 38, re-enacted the third rule in the canon of descents upon which the contention in Cauble v. Clement had turned, it must be taken to have given the Legislative sanction to the interpretation put upon it in that case. Since 1854 that interpretation has been a rule of property, and must have been acted on in many cases. Many estates must now be held under it. To change the rule now would cause great wrongs.
A decision of a Court of last resort which from its nature is a rule of property, especially after it had been acquiesced in and acted on for nearly twenty years, cannot be departed from without injustice, and its original merits are not open to inquiry.
There is no error in the judgment below. It is affirmed, and the action is remanded-to the Superior Court of Bladen to be proceeded in according to law.
Pee Cubiam. Judgment affirmed.