Blake v. O'Neal.
| Decision Date | 04 February 1908 |
| Citation | 63 W.Va. 483 |
| Parties | Blake v. O'Neal. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
tribution.
As a matter of intention, ascertained by application of the rules of interpretation and construction, rather than as matter of law, a deed by which land is granted, bargained and sold, in fee simple, to one person for the use of another, separates the legal from the equitable title in fee simple, and vests the former in the trustee and the latter in the cestui que trust, and each is then governed by the laws of descent, and, on the death of the party in whom it is vested, goes to his heirs, (p. 486.)
Such a deed creates a trust, which is not, by our statute of uses, nor any principle of common law, executed in the cestui que trust, (p. 489.)
The English statute of uses, 27 Henry VIII, chapter 10, was not in force in the state of Virginia after the year 1792, and has never been adopted in any form, as part of the law of this State, (p. 490.)
The statute of uses of this State, section 14 of chapter 71 of the Code, executes only uses created by deeds of bargain and sale, deeds of lease and release, covenants to stand seized, or covenants operating as covenants to stand seized. Hence, it has no application to uses created by will or instruments other than those mentioned therein, (p. 490.)
As between the grantor and the trustee, a deed granting, bargaining and selling land to a trustee for the use of a third person, vests the legal title in the trustee, under the statute of grants, independently of the statute of uses. (p. 492.)
verse Title.
If the grantor in a deed, containing a covenant of general warranty, conveying away the title in fee simple, remain in possession after the execution thereof, he is presumptively the tenant of the grantee, and cannot set up an independent title in himself, without having shown some act of ouster of his landlord, or the equivalent thereof, (p. 496.)
The grantor so remaining in possession cannot set up title as against the grantee or his heirs by adverse possession, if, by his deed, he has warranted generally the title to the land. Such covenant passes, to the covenantee, by estoppel, a pre-existing outstanding title, subsequently acquired by the covenantor, (p. 496.)
tion from Taxation Effect.
A tenant or agent whose duty it was to pay the taxes on land, and who, neglecting to do so, allowed it to become delinquent for nonpayment of taxes and to be sold to the state at a sheriff's sale, and, in a suit by the state, to sell the same for the benefit of the school fund, redeemed it in his own name, took such title as he thereby acquired from the state in trust for the benefit of his landlord or principal, (p. 495.)
A decree ordering the sale, or permitting the redemption, of land, in a suit brought under chapter 102 of the Code, to sell forfeited lands for the benefit of the school fund, is not binding upon persons who were not, in any form, made parties thereto, (p. 495.)
Taxation of land in the name of a former owner prevents forfeiture of the title thereto, for non-entry thereof for taxation, as to the owner of the title under which the same was so taxed, (p. 496.)
The owner of an equitable title, having the right to call in the legal title, will be entertained in a court of equity, to compel the conveyance of the legal title to him, and cancel invalid instruments constituting clouds thereon, although, the trust being dry, he might maintain ejectment on the presumption that the legal title had been conveyed to him, or the rule that a stranger cannot maintain his possession against superior title on mere defects in the claim of the opposite party to the ownership of such title, (p. 497.)
The primary object of such a bill is the vindication of the equitable title, not the removal of a cloud from the legal title, and the rule, requiring possession, on the part of a plaintiff in a bill to remove cloud from title, has no application, (p. 497.)
Appeal from Circuit Court, Fayette County. Bill by C. T. Blake and others against Sue O'Neal and others.. Decree for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal.
Reversed. Remanded.
Payne & Hamilton and Hubard & Lee, for appellants. Dillon & Nuckolls, for appellees.
poffenbarger, president:
The circuit court of Fayette county having denied equity jurisdiction of this cause, by dismissal of the bill on final hearing, the appeal therefrom raises a number of important and somewhat difficult questions of both substantive law and practice.
Being out of possessession and regarding the legal title as outstanding in the heirs of a deceased trustee, the plaintiffs below, C. T. Blake and others, heirs at law of Martha Blake, deceased, instituted this suit against Sue O'Neal, Emma Goode and L. M. Woolwine, heirs of M. E. Woolwine, the dead trustee, the Dillon Coal and Land Company, corporation, claiming to be the owner of the land, and Lewis Blake and.E. B. Hawkins, the remote and immediate grantors, respectively, of the Dillon Coal and Land Company. The relief specifically asked is conveyance of the legal title to the plaintiffs and cancellation of two deeds, hereinafter mentioned, under which the Dillon Coal and Land Company claims.
The facts material upon the inquiry as to jurisdiction are as follows: The defendant Lewis Blake, father of the plaintiffs below, being the owner of sixty-eight acres of land, by deed, dated August 10, 1875, did, for and in consideration of five dollars, "grant, bargain and sell" the land unto "M. E. Woolwine, trustee for" Martha Blake, the wife of the grantor and mother of the plaintiffs. Thereafter he remained in possession of the land untill after the death of his wife, the maturity in age of his children by her and their departure from the paternal roof to find homes for themselves, and the rearing of another set of children by his second wife. On the 12th day of February, 1902, he and his second wife executed a deed, purporting to convey the land to E. B. Hawkins, who, on the first day of May, 1902, executed a deed therefor to the Dillon Coal and Land Company. On the death of Lewis Blake, the suit was revived against his heirs. Martha Blake, the first wife died October 27, 1887. The death of the trustee occurred before that of Mrs. Blake.
In the argument of counsel for the appellee, adequacy of the remedy at law and consequent want of jurisdiction in equity are predicated principally upon two propositions: first, that the trustee took, by the deed, the legal title only for the natural life of the cestui que trust; and second, that, although he took the legal title in fee simple, it was transferred to, and vested in, the cestui que trust by the statute of uses, and descended, on the death of Marth Blake, to her heirs, along with the equitable title; so that, in either case, the plaintiffs, having the legal title, may bring ejectment and have no occasion to come into equity for relief.
That a trustee takes the legal title in such quantity as is necessary to the performance of the duties imposed upon him, when the trust is active, and co-extensive with the equitable estate vested in the cestui que trust, when it is passive, and no more, is a proposition very generally recognized and received by the courts; but, the application thereof is limited to those cases in which the instrument, fairly interpreted, discloses such intention. It probably has more extensive application in cases involving the construction of wills than in any others; but, in many instances, it obtains in construction of deeds. For instance, if land be devised or granted to one person for the use of another for and during the natural life of the latter, without more, it may well be said that, fairly construed, the instrument creates only a life estate in the trustee, leaving the remainder, as to both the legal and equitable interests, in the grantor or the heirs of the testator; for an intention, on the part of the grantor or testator, to separate the legal title in remainder from the equitable title in remainder, would be unreasonable. The limitation of the beneficial interest in point of duration to the life of the cestui que trust shows a particular intention which limits and restricts the general terms in which the grant or devise to the trustee is clothed. Viewed as a whole, the instrument creates a life estate in the beneficiary and a corresponding life estate in the trustee. Thus, in Doe v. Ponsidine, 6 Wall. (U. S.)458, the Supreme Court of the United States said: The intention to create only life estates in both the trustee and the cestui que trust having been so ascertained, it necessarily followed that, upon the death of the cestui que trust, the life tenant, the legal title in remainder was not separated from the equitable title in remainder. If given over to another party, the complete title in remainder, legal and equitable, was given over, not by force of law, but by the intention of the testator. If it wasundisposed of by the will, it remained in the testator until his death and decended to his heirs....
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