Public Ledger

Its Construction by the Supreme Court.
[From Nashville Banner, 14th.]

Inasmuch as the Supreme Court has never made a ruling on the subject, and as many like cases are now pending in most all the courts in the State, Chief Justice Nicholson delivered a highly important opinion yesterday in the case of E. A. Hicks, administrator, vs. Mary D. Pepper, etc. In January, 1873, young Pepper died in Robertson county, leaving a widow and an infant. The widow removed to Kentucky, carrying with her the infant with no intention of returning and occupying the homestead, thereby becoming a non-resident of the State, and, as the Court held, relinquishing her right to the homestead by voluntary and permanent abandonment of the possession of the premises. The domicile of the child was removed, and its contingent right to the homestead exemption ceased by the removal along with that of the mother. It follows that upon the removal of the widow and the child, and their acquiring a permanent domicil in Kentucky, the homestead ceased from the ordinary operation of the laws of the State. In support of his conclusion Chief Justice Nicholson quotes from the case of Black vs. Currens in 14 Wallace as follows:

"As long as the property retained its peculiar character, it was within the protection of the law, but the exemption from sale under execution, or by deed (except with homestead waiver) could be lost by abandonment or surrender; that is to say, by acts in pais." The case of Black vs. Curren involved the construction of the Illinois homestead law, which is substantially the same with ours. The result was that the decree of the Chancellor giving to the widow and child $1000 for the homestead exemption in addition to the dower was erroneous, and the case was therefore reversed.