MOSES GINGER, SAMMANI, a Bassa man CATHERINE NELSON MAY-SON, and all those who are claiming tenancy and/or occupancy under the defendants, Appellants, v. SANDO BAI, one of the two sons of the late MOMO BAI (BOI) and FARMAH, the two Brothers of OLD COFFEE FARM area, CALDWELL, for himself and representing his sisters, their nephews and nieces, HOWAH BAI, ZINNA BAI, MAIMA KAIZOLU, by and through her husband, LANSANNAH KAIZOLU, ZOE MIATTA BAI, and ISARTA BAI, daughter of the late MOMO BAI, all of CALDWELL, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, MONTSERRADO COUNTY. Date of argument not shown. Decided June 13, 1969. 1. In an action of ejectment the jury’s verdict must sufficiently describe the land awarded so that a writ of possession can be issued based upon the description. 2. The plaintiff in an action of ejectment must furnish clear and convincing proof of his title and may not, in any event, rely upon the weakness of defendant’s title. 3. When a charge has been raised by one of the parties of jury tampering, the trial court should suspend all other proceedings to properly investigate this serious allegation. After an initial trial ending in a verdict for defendants and reversal by the Supreme Court of the judgment therein, the action in ejectment was tried a second time, the jury’s verdict favoring plaintiffs. The defendants appealed from the judgment entered against them. At the trial, the evidence presented by plaintiffs as to the property claimed by them, appeared vague and uncertain, their surveyor admitting to the state of confusion as evidenced by various deeds and descriptions and the uncertainty raised thereby. In the motion brought for a new trial, the defendants also charged jury tampering. The 372 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS judgment was reversed, 373 and the case remanded with instructions to the lower court for its proper treatment therein. for appellants. Nete Sie MacDonald M. Perry Brownell for appellees. MR. court. JUSTICE MITCHELL delivered the opinion of the The plaintiffs filed an action of ejectment in the Circuit Court, Sixth Judicial Circuit, Montserrado County, in the June 1963 Term. They averred that they were the owners in fee simple and entitled to possession of a parcel of property, lot no. 7, consisting of thirty acres of land, which they had purchased from the Republic of Liberia and subsequent grantors, of which the defendants were adversely, wrongfully and unlawfully occupying and withholding approximately five acres. As a result, they claimed damages of about $1,000.00. The defendants denied the allegations, and claimed they were lawfully in possession of the disputed land. At the first trial a verdict was returned by the jury for the defendants, and an appeal was taken from the judgment. At the March 1967 Term of this Court, this appeal was heard and the case remanded for certain irregularities which took place during the trial below. The case has been tried again in the lower court and is now before us� for a second time on a bill of exceptions consisting of four counts, brought by the defendants on appeal, charging variance of proof from the facts complained of, and various irregularities at the trial. When Oscar Gray, who did the surveying, was on the witness stand, he made the following statement: “May I further state that in my statement, I want the court to further understand that we were given four 374 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS deeds covering 40 acres of land, but during the confusion between the two parties concerned, we handled three deeds covering 3o acres of land, but, approximately, Moses Ginger et al. are now occupying four acres of land out of the 40-acre block and three acres out of the 3o-acre block.” Plaintiffs’ suit claimed that defendants were occupying five acres of their thirty-acre tract of land, and Oscar Gray, the surveyor, should have been their principal witness. A forty-acre tract was not involved in the case at all. The testimony of this witness showed that the defendants occupied only three acres of the thirty acres in question and four acres of the forty-acre tract. The survey about which he testified had not been completed when confusion engulfed the parties. This testimony obviously occasioned a variance between the complaint of the plaintiffs and their evidence offered in support. No other witness for the plaintiffs testified to the particular five-acre tract of land which they claimed the defendants unlawfully withheld. The jury, after deliberating, returned a verdict in the case which read : “We, the jurors, to whom the case in ejectment, Sando Bai, plaintiff, versus Catherine Nelson Mayson, defendant, was submitted, after a careful consideration of the evidence adduced at the trial of said case, do unanimously agree that the plaintiff is entitled to his land in the action of ejectment.” This verdict results in complete uncertainty as to the land the jury claimed the plaintiffs were to be possessed of, the 4 acres of the 40 acres, the 3 acres of the 3o-acre tract, or the 5 acres claimed by the plaintiffs in their complaint. It was, therefore, error when the trial judge dismissed the motion for a new trial and rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. It goes without saying that the jury was charged with the responsibility in its verdict to describe the land to which . the plaintiffs were entitled. When the evidence LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 375 was not conclusive on this point and the verdict of the jury remiss in any description of its award, judgment rendered thereon is liable to reversal, because such judgment could include land beyond the power of the jury to award. In fact, the court’s ruling made on the motion for a new trial is not sufficiently clear, because the moment the issue of tampering was raised by the defendants, the court should have immediately investigated this all-important allegation to ascertain the truthfulness or falsity of the charge made, suspendig its judgment on all other issues. In Duncan v. Perry, 13 L.L.R. sio (196o), this Court said that a plaintiff in an ejectment action must rely upon proof of title in himself, and cannot prevail merely by reason of defects in the defendant’s title, being required to furnish clear and convincing proof of title. The verdict must show what was awarded, and must not be so uncertain that a writ of possession cannot be issued upon it. In the case before us, the verdict is ambiguous and does not indicate on its face what property the plaintiffs were entitled to. Hence, no judgment affirming the verdict could legally describe the property of which a party was to be possessed. Therefore, the judgment is reversed and the case remanded, the issues of law to be resolved before trial by jury properly instructed in the law governing ejectment, costs to abide the final determination of the case. And the clerk of this Court is hereby ordered to send a mandate to the court below informing it of this opinion. And it is hereby so ordered. Reversed and remanded.