Morrison Waite

“ The laws of Illinois, therefore, requiring the certificate of a clerk in certain cases as to the official character of a justice of the peace, are unimportant. If in Michigan such a certificate was not necessary to complete the execution of the deed, none was required in Illinois. Certainly a deed may be said to be fully executed when all has been done that is necessary to entitle it to record, and for that purpose in Michigan the evidence of an acknowledgment was complete when the officer before whom it was taken signed a certificate to that effect indorsed on the deed. ”

“ It is true the certificate does not state that the officer was one who by law could take the acknowledgment of deeds, but it does state what the office was, and as the statute makes it the official duty of one holding such an office to take the acknowledgment of deeds, the statement of his official character necessarily included a statement of his official authority. ”

“ If the jury had found for the plaintiff on any such theory, it would have been the duty of the court to set the verdict aside and grant a new trial. Consequently there was no error in refusing the charge requested. ”