Joseph Story

“ But as to the principle upon which a razure avoids a deed, it is not too much to say, that the law of the subject appears to have got into some confusion. Modern decisions, particularly of our own Courts, lean against the excessive rigour with which some writers and some cases disfigure it. In the case of the United States v. Cutts, (1 Gall. 69.) a bond, that had been cancelled and mutilated, the seal torn away by the joint act of the defendant and the plaintiff's bailee, was still held, and rightly held, to be sustainable as the deed of the party. ”

“ It is not one entire thing, but a several deed for each county. A deputation as to the county of A., is not a deputation as to the county of B., although written on the same paper, and comprised within the same words; it is as much a several deed, as to each county, as if written on several sheets of paper; as much as a policy of insurance is the several contract of each underwriter, or as a bond would be the several deed of as many individuals as executed it, if it be so expressed, making them, if such be the letter of it, severally liable, and for various sums, no one for another. ”

“ The object of the Legislature was, to protect the public from the mischief of payments to the deputy after his powers are revoked. It requires public notice, to be given of the revocation, so that no future imposition shall be practised; and if the Collector should make a private revocation, without any public notice, the legal conclusion would be, that all payments made to his deputy, in ignorance of the revocation, ought to be held valid; for no man is entitled to make his own wrongful omission of duty a foundation of right. ”

“ To bring the case nearer to the present: suppose there was a bond given, as collateral security, to pay the note of 500 dollars; it will scarcely be pretended, that the alteration would not extinguish the liability under the bond. The instrument would, indeed, remain, but it would no longer possess its former obligation and identity. Nothing can be better settled, than the doctrine that, if an obligation be dependent on another obligation, (and, by parity of reasoning, upon the legal existence of another instrument,) and the latter be discharged, or become void, the former is also discharged. ”

“ It is the intent that gives effect to the acts of parties; nothing was farther from the minds of the parties here, than the distinction of the power of Ustick, as to the eight counties, at the time of this interlineation. The plea avers no such intent, and as well might a delivery of a deed for perusal be tortured into a surrender and extinction of it, and its return into a revocation, as the acts of these parties respecting this interlineation, be construed into a revocation and redelivery. ”

“ Every erasure and interlineation in the deed, by the obligee or appointee, without consent, is a surrender; and a revocation may be implied by law. The passage cited at the bar, from Co. Lit. 232. (a.) establishes, that if the feoffee, by deed of land, grants his deed by parol to the feoffor, it is a surrender of the property, as well as of the deed. And if, in this case, the deed of appointment had been delivered up to the Collector, it would, at once, have operated as a surrender by the Deputy, and a revocation by the Collector. ”

“ But when we encounter the doctrine, as laid down in Pigot's case, 'that when a deed is altered in a point material, by a stranger, without the privity of the obligee, even by drawing a pen through the midst of a material word, that it shall be void,' without reference to the fraud, privity, or gross negligence of the obligor, it certainly is time to pause ”

“ There is a great paucity of decisions, in modern times, on the subject of razures and interlineations. If we mount to its origin, we find it, in the Year-Books, and in Perkins, who cites them, given as the ground of suspicion and inquiry. ”

“ The condition of Stewart's bond to the plaintiff, recites no particular deed of appointment, under which Ustick was constituted Deputy Collector; nor is there an iota in the bond, or in the declaration, that can identify the deed set forth in the plea, with the deed under which Ustick held his deputation. The condition of the bond simply states, 'Whereas E. M., Collector, as aforesaid, hath, by virtue of authority vested in him by the laws of the United States, appointed U. Deputy Collector,' &c. ”

“ The defence rests upon certain inferences from, or consequences imputed to, the naked act of interlining the word 'Willingborough,' without even averring the acts necessary to make the instrument a deed as to that county, or the intent to revoke or re-execute the deed as to the residue
To us it appears, that it ought no more to affect the rights of the parties, than interlining the name of a region beyond the Atlantic, or a mere dash of the pen. ”