HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.
![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0864 and id is 1 raw text is: BROOKS- V. KEITH
if it did, a bill for specific performance will not lie against the landowner in respect
thereof, and that therefore there is no conversion.
But two passages have been cited from Lord St. Leonards' Vendors and Purchasers,
as shewing that the notice to treat causes conversion. One of those passages is in
page 66, and is as follows :- Where a person is competent to sell, and a binding
contract, or [460] what is tantamount to it, is made under an Act giving a company
power to take land, the landowner's interest is converted into personalty, and will go
to his personal representative, notwithstanding a devise by him before the sale of the
estate. And for this proposition three cases are cited in the note, viz., Ex parte
Hawkins (13 Sim. 569), Galliers v. Allen (Ibid. 577, n.), and Richards v. Attorney-General
of Jamaica (6 Moo. P. C. 381).
Now Ex parte Hawkins did not rest on the notice to treat, but on a special contract;
for the price had been fixed by the surveyors of the parties, and the landowner had
sent an abstract of his title. In Galliers v. Allen the value had been assessed by a
jury at £700, and the amount had been paid into the bank to the account of the
landowners. And Richards v. Attorney-General for Jamaica was a case under the Act
for the Abolition of Slavery, where the slaveowner, anticipating the operation of the
Act, made his will bequeathing the expected compensation money.; and it was held
that he could do so by a will not attested by three witnesses. So that the citation of
these cases shews that Lord St. Leonards did not mean to lay down the proposition
that a mere service of a notice to treat would effect conversion.
The other passage cited was from page 160, and is as follows :- As to dispositions
by vendors; under the old law, as we have seen, a contract by a man to sell his estate
revoked his will in equity, although not at law, and the rule has been held not to
be varied by the statute; and the same rule prevails, although the sale is under
compulsion of a railway. And [461] for this the case of In re Manchester, &c., Railway
Company (19 Beav. 365) is cited in the note; but in that case the conversion was
effected, not by a mere notice to treat, but by an actual contract entered into by the
landowner for the sale of his land to the company. So that all that Lord St.
Leonards meant was, that if a testator sold the' land it would effect conversion, even
though the contract for sale originated in the exercise of the compulsory powers of
the Act.
The result I arrive at is that there is no conversion in the case now before me.
There must therefore be a declaration that the devisees under the will are entitled to
the purchase-money.
[462] BROOKS v. KEITH. Feb. 13, April 17, 1861.
[S. C. 4 L. T. 541 ; 7 Jur. (N. S.) 482 ; 9 W. R. 565. See In re Allnutt, 1882,
22 Ch. D. 279.]
Settlement. Covenant to Settle Future Property.
Where a covenant to settle after-acquired property was contained in a settlement
executed on the marriage of a lady, who at the time was entitled to a contingent
interest liable to be divested, but which afterwards fell into possession ; and who
afterwards became entitled to property to her separate use, as to part of which
there was a proviso against alienation : Held, that the property to which the lady
was contingently entitled at the time of her marriage came within the terms of
the covenant, but that the property settled to her separate use, and as to which
there was a proviso against alienation, was not included in it.
The question in this case was as to what property was comprised in a covenant to
settle after-acquired property contained in a marriage settlement.
The covenant in question, which was contained in the marriage settlement of Mr.
Charles Brooks and Eliza, his wife, dated the 5th of October.1842, was as follows:-
It is hereby agreed, that the whole of the portion or fortune of the said Eliza
Snook, and all her future property, either by gift, bequest, descent or otherwise, shall
I DR. & SM. 460.
455](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0864&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)