Atwood v. Kittell

2 F. Cas. 199, 9 Ben. 473
CourtDistrict Court, D. Vermont
DecidedApril 15, 1878
StatusPublished

This text of 2 F. Cas. 199 (Atwood v. Kittell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Vermont primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Atwood v. Kittell, 2 F. Cas. 199, 9 Ben. 473 (D. Vt. 1878).

Opinion

WHEELER, District Judge.

This cause has been heard upon pleadings, proofs, and argument, from which it appears that William Buck, now a bankrupt of whose estate the orator is assignee, owned the farm in question, subject to some incumbrances, and that he and his then wife, who was the daughter of Jonathan C. Kittell, now deceased, and of whose estate the defendants Lewis H. Kittell and William F. Willey are administrators, conveyed the farm to him for the purpose of procuring sixteen hundred and sixty-six and two-thirds dollars, with which to pay oft the incumbrances, and of having it reconveyed to them, subject to the payment of an annual sum equal to the interest advanced, during his life and the life of his wife, which sum was to be in full of their share of his estate; that pursuant to this arrangement they joined in a conveyance of the farm to him, and he immediately executed the instrument of conveyance set forth in the bill of complaint to them, and delivered to them the money and they executed an acquittance of all claim to his estate and delivered it to him. The wife of the bankrupt died in 1867, her mother in October, 1874, and her father on the 24th day of November. 1S74. The annual sum was paid up to 1867, and part or all of that due since has not been paid. Perhaps the elder Kittell had before made advances to his daughter on account of which he required the acquittance, and perhaps not; whether he had or not is quite doubtful upon the evidence and not at all material here.

This bill is brought by the assignee to ascertain what rights he has to the farm, and the heirs of the wife of the bankrupt, as well as the administrators of the estate of her father, have been made parties. As the assignee stands upon the rights of the bankrupt, it becomes necessary to ascertain what rights remained to the bankrupt after the transaction and conveyances stated, and how they have been affected by subsequent occurrences.

The wife of the bankrupt was under the disabilities of coverture, but her husband and father were under none. She had no vested rights in her father’s estate, and her acquittance of it formed no consideration in law for either of the conveyances. The bankrupt and her father were each the owners of what they conveyed, and had full power over the direction in which the conveyances would take the property.

It has been said in argument that the transaction showed the conveyance from the bankrupt to be a mere mortgage to secure repayment of the money advanced, and that it should be so construed now, and a lien declared for the money in favor of the representatives of the elder Kittell. But the transaction shows that the money was not to be repaid but was to remain, so there was no debt for any mortgage to secure; and without a mortgage debt there can be no subsisting mortgage. There are no extrinsic facts that have any weight to control the ordinary construction of these instruments. They were made upon valid consideration, by persons competent to make them, and are operative according to their legal construction and effect. The deed from the bankrupt was an absolute conveyance of the farm, and there is no room for construction upon it. The conveyance to him and wife is somewhat anomalous, and must receive interpretation. Whatever it carried was conveyed to them, “their heirs, executors, and administrators.” At the common law this would have made them joint tenants without their being husband and wife. Co. Litt. 180; 2 Bl. Comm. 179. The nature of this joint tenancy is that the survivor takes the whole, according to the estate he would have if the tenancy continued, and either may alien his share according to the same estate. Brooke, Abr. “Cui in Vita,” 8; Litt. Ten. § 288; Co. Litt. 186a. They hold by entireties for seisin, [200]*200possession and survivorship, and by shares for feoffment, forfeiture, or default in a real action. Greeneley’s Case, 8 Coke, 71. But when a conveyance is taken to husband and wife on account of their legal identity and attendant disabilities, they take differently. They take by entireties, but neither can alone alienate to create a moiety, so they do not take by moieties. In Brooke, Abr. ■“Cui in Vita,” S, it is laid down as per cu-riam, “ou le baron et femme purchase terre, et le barron alyen et devye, la femme poet aver cui in vita, et recouver 1’entiere, car ne sont moyties entre la barron et femme du-rant le couverture, et ideo n’est bone pour ascun moytye, mes si les purchase devaunt le couverture, et puis ent’mary, et le bar’ alyen tout et devye, la femme avait cui in vita de 1’moyty et recouver ceo et 1’alienac’ est bon’ del aut’ moity q’d nota diversitie, car patet.” 39 Hen. VI. 45.

The statute of this state of 1797 severed all joint tenancies not created in express terms; but this did not include the peculiar joint estate created by a conveyance to husband and wife, (Brownson v. Hull, 16 Vt. 309,) and it seems to have been the policy of the legislature of the state to preserve that kind of estate with its characteristics; for by the Revised Statutes, the former statute was expressly limited so as not to apply to such conveyances, and so the law remains still, (Gen. St. c. 64, §§ 2, 3.) So by the law of the state, this conveyance to husband and wife stood as at common law, and under it the survivor, the husband, as the common law has always been, took the whole. Litt. Ten. § 291; 1 Thom. Co. Litt. 576; Beaumont’s Case, 9 Coke, 138b; Co. Litt. 187; 2 Bl. Comm. 182; Doe v. Parratt, 5 Term. R. 654; 4 Kent, Comm. 362; Brownson v. Hull, 16 Vt. 309. The instrument was executed with all the formalities required by the statute for the execution of a deed to convey full title to lands. No particular form of words is necessary to constitute such a deed. All that is required is that "there must be words sufficient to specify the agreement and bind the parties.” 2 Bl. Comm. 297. The statute prescribes the mode of execution but not the form.

The first part of the instrument is plainly a lease of the premises during the lives of the lessor and his wife, provided the lessees pay the annual sum of one hundred dollars to them or the' survivor, and pay all rent, which meant public rent, and taxes. The annual payment was not called rent in the instrument, but merely a sum of money. This conveyed a life estate, for the lives of the lessor and his wife, and the life of the survivor of them, to the lessees. Further on in the instrument it says: “And I the said Jonathan C. Kittell of Sheldon aforesaid, for and in consideration of an acquittance this day signed by the said William and Charlotte Buck to any right of claim to any portion of my estate after my decease, I do hereby give, grant, convey, and confirm all the before-named and described premises to the said William and Charlotte Buck, their heirs, executors, and administrators, with all the privileges and‘appurtenances belonging, from and after the time of my own decease, and the decease of my wife Elizabeth Kit-tell, so that no one claiming under me shall have or enjoy any right to any part or portion of said premises forever.” These words are sufficient to make a conveyance of the whole remainder after the expiration of the life estate. As to that it was to take effect in futuro, but if livery of seisin was necessary, this would not defeat it, for livery of the particular life estate to the same parties under the same instrument would uphold it.

But under the registry system, a conveyance in futuro, without any particular estate to uphold it, may be made valid. Gorham v. Daniels, 23 Vt. 600.

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Related

Brownson v. Hull
42 Am. Dec. 517 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 1844)
Gorham v. Daniels
23 Vt. 600 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 1851)

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Bluebook (online)
2 F. Cas. 199, 9 Ben. 473, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/atwood-v-kittell-vtd-1878.