Morris et al. v. Stephens et al.

• Decision Date: 04 January 1864
• Citation: 46 Pa. 200
• Parties: Morris <I>et al. versus</I> Stephens <I>et al.</I>
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 200

46 Pa. 200

Morris et al. versus Stephens et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

January 4, 1864.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Greene county.

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Purman & Ritchie, and McConnell & Crawford, for plaintiffs in error.

Wylie & Buchanan, for defendants.

The opinion of the court was delivered, January 4th 1864, by LOWRIE, C. J.

This is a conveyance by Andrew Lantz, Sr., to "the heirs of his son Andrew," who was then living, and the court below pronounced the deed void for uncertainty, and refused to admit parol evidence that the grantor declared that he meant Andrew's children then born, and that might be born afterwards. This decision is fully sustained by authority by the opinion of the court in the case of Hall v. Leonard, 1 Pick. 27, and by the citations there made, and by others furnished by the counsel here.

The counsel for the defendants below, however, place much reliance on the manifest fact that, in devises, the word heir is very often admitted as a word of purchase, as distinguished from words of limitation or descent, but that fact does not seem to us to help their case. That general and indefinite form of transmission is necessarily allowed in wills, because they are always intended to go into effect at a future time, and to provide for future and uncertain events, and must therefore be allowed to have that degree of indefiniteness relative to the donees that is involved in the very nature of the act; it must be allowed to provide, not only for individuals named, but for described classes of donees, to be ascertained by evidence at the death of the testator or afterwards, just as it dispenses with delivery of the written assurance, with livery of seisin, one or other of which is necessary in present conveyances.

But by the very nature of the act of present conveyance, this necessity of indefiniteness is excluded; for the grantor knows who his grantees are and can easily name them. As there must be definite parties, grantor and grantee, in such acts, a grant to uncertain persons is no grant at all, except grants and dedications to public and charitable uses. If the grantor knows his grantees well enough to deliver the deed to them, he knows them well enough to name them. It would be mere folly to make a conveyance to my next door neighbour or to the person now sitting at the table with me, by this description, instead of by name, and the law could hardly be expected to enforce such a...