Henderson v. Adams

48 P. 398, 15 Utah 30, 1897 Utah LEXIS 17
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 7, 1897
DocketNo. 771
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 48 P. 398 (Henderson v. Adams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Henderson v. Adams, 48 P. 398, 15 Utah 30, 1897 Utah LEXIS 17 (Utah 1897).

Opinion

Zane, C. J.,

after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

On August 31, 1893, the defendant Louis B. Adams owed the Utah National Bank of Ogden $24,602.37, then due. The bank was willing to grant him further time for its payment, if he would give additional security. Adams executed a deed conveying certain real estate, estimated to be worth $60,000, and transferred some personal property, to one George Bra stow in trust for the Adams Nursery Company, a corporation to be organized the next day to carry on the nursery and real-estate business in Weber county, Utah. It was also agreed by Adams and the bank that such real estate and personal property should be paid for by issuing the stock of the nursery company to Adams, and that he should pledge the same to the bank to secure his indebtedness to it. It appears that the stock was so issued to Adams and pledged to the bank, and that the trustee has not conveyed or transferred the property so deeded to him to the nursery company. In view of the fact that the trustee has not conveyed the land described in the trust deed to him to the Adams Nursery Company, counsel for plaintiffs insist [36]*36that the legal title thereto is still in the trustee, while counsel for the defendants contend that, in view of the nature of the trust, the law passed the title to the Adams Nursery Company as soon as its organization was perfected. To a clear understanding of the question, it is necessary to refer to the statute of uses, and to its effect upon uses and trusts and the mode of transferring the legal title to lands. The most ancient method of conveying land known to the common law is described by the term '-'feoffment,” according to which the language used in making the transfer was attended with corporeal possession. The intention to transfer the title was expressed by appropriate physical acts as well as by appropriate words. Mere words, whether spoken or written, were not sufficient. The acts attending the preparation, signing, acknowledging, and delivery of a deed sufficient since the adoption of the statute of uses were not enough. The ceremony is known as ''livery of seisin,” and is described in the second book of Blackstone’s Commentaries (page 315). During the existence "of that system of conveyance, uses and trust were introduced to evade the statutes of mortmain, and became almost universal. A use may be defined as “the right in one person to take the profits of land of which another has the legal title and possession, with the duty of defending it and making estates thereof as directed by the ‘cestui que use.’ ” Prior to the statutes of uses, the terms “use” and “trust” were used without any accurate distinction between them. The introduction of uses, and the development and application of the rules defining “uses” and “trusts,” abounded in subtile refinements and nice distinctions. And finally the concealed operation of those, and the often unknown existence of such rights to others than the immediate parties, resulted in much uncertainty, deception, and injustice. [37]*37The statute of 27 Hen. VIII, c. 10, called the “Statute of Uses,” was adopted for the purpose of sweeping the system away, and with the intent of substituting a simple method of transferring title to lands, without such opportunity for evasion and deception, and with the intent of ridding rights to real property' of the secrecy and uncertainty to which they had been subject. That statute enacted that: “When any person shall be seised of lands,” • etc., “to the use, confidence or trust of any other person or body politic, the person or corporation entitled to the use in fee-simple, fee-tail, for life, or years, or otherwise, shall from thenceforth stand and be seised or possessed of the lands,” etc., “of and in the like estates as they have in the use, trust or confidence, and that the estate of the person so seised to use shall be deemed to be in him or them that have the use in such quality, manner, form and condition, as they had before in the use.” 2 Bl. Comm. 332, 333. This author adds: “The statute thus 'executes the use/ as our lawyers term it; that is, it conveys the possession to the use, and transfers the use into possession, thereby making the cestm que use the complete owner of the lands and tenements, as well at law as in equity.” Thus, the right of possession is given to the person having the right to the use. The same author further says: “The various necessities of mankind induced also the judges very soon to depart from the rigor and simplicity of the rules of the common law, and to allow a more minute and complex construction upon conveyances to uses than others. Hence it was adjudged that the use need not always be executed the instant the conveyance is made, but, if it cannot take effect at that time, the operation of the statute may wait till the use shall arise upon some future contingency, to happen within a reasonable period of time.” Following [38]*38tbe same rule of construction, the courts also held that “no use could be limited on a use;” and they held that in case of such limitation the first would be executed, and the latter would be void. Again, they held that the statute did not extend to terms of years. And lastly the same author says: “(By more modern resolution) where lands are given to one and his heirs in trust to receive and pay over the profits to another, this use is not executed by the statute; for the land must remain in the trustee, to enable him to perform the trust.” These three exceptions appear to be almost all that is left of that complicated and elaborate system of rules based so largely upon nice distinctions and subtile reasoning to evade the forfeitures of real property held by the church, religious or political factions, or vanquished warriors. This rule is laid down in 2 Washb. Real Prop. (5th Ed.) 466, 467, as follows: “In most of the United States the statute of uses is so far recognized as the law of the state, either by express enactment of the statute itself, or of similar statutes, or by the decisions of the courts, that wdiere the use is merely dry or passive, as an. estate granted to A., to the use of B., the legal title will immediately vest in B., the cestui; whereas, if any active duty is imposed upon the grantee to uses, as to collect the rents and profits of the land and pay them to B., the statute of uses will not transfer the legal title to the cestui.’' And at pages 501 and 502, Id., the following language is used: “Although the limitation of the estate to one be such as would be executed in another, as the cestm que trust, if the trust named was to be merely passive, yet, if he have an active duty, to do which requires him to hold the legal estate for a term or time, he will be considered as seised thereof accordingly, so long as it shall be necessary; and it will be then executed in the cestui que trust, upon the [39]*39principle that trustees only take so much of the legal estate as the purposes of the trust require.” The reason for livery of seisin in conveying the leggl title to lands ceased when the act for recording deeds went into effect in this state, and a bargain and sale deed passes the legal title to land, under the principle of the statute of uses. Though lands may be in the adverse posséssion of another, the owner may, by deed under the statutes of Utah, pass his title to any third person.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
48 P. 398, 15 Utah 30, 1897 Utah LEXIS 17, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/henderson-v-adams-utah-1897.