Legal deed

“ Suppose a man of property dies and leaves a will, what troubles are possible about the disposal of his property? Suppose he leaves no will, what troubles are possible? Whose duty is it to exercise control over such matters and hold people up to legal and honourable conduct in them? ”

“ The authority of the court is exercised in such cases, through its preventive writ, to preserve the property from destruction pending legal proceedings for the determination of the title. Jerome v. Ross, 7 Johns. ”

“ Relevancy of certain judgments in probate etc., jurisdiction A final judgment, order or decree of a Competent Court, in exercise of probate, matrimonial, admiralty or insolvency jurisdiction, which confers upon or to take away from any person any legal character, or which declares any person to be entitled to any such character, or to be entitled to any specific thing not as against any specified person but absolutely, is relevant when the existence of any legal character, or the title of any such person to any such thing, is relevant. ”

“ As a means of securing the payment of debt, the pledging one's life and the lives of the members of one's family, in the history of many races, preceded in order of development the pledging of property—the right to legal process against the person likewise becoming established as a means of collection before process against property was known to the law. ”

“ To this replication there was a general demurrer and joinder in demurrer, on which the Court below gave judgment for the United States: and we are of opinion that the judgment was right. It is clear, at the common law, that an alteration or addition in a deed, as by adding a new obligor, or an erasure in a deed, as by striking out an old obligor, if done with the consent and concurrence of all the parties to the deed, does not avoid it. ”

“ We know of no law which avoids a deed, where a valuable (by which, to a general intent must also be understood adequate) consideration is paid, and the change of property be bona fide, or such as it professes to be. ”

“ No court or ministerial officer in this State shall ever have jurisdiction or authority to enforce any judgment, execution, or decree against the property set apart for such purpose, including such improvements as may be made thereon from time to time, except for taxes, for the purchase-money of the same, for labor done thereon, for material furnished therefor, or for the removal of incumbrances thereon. ”

“ Whenever the law provides a remedy enforceable in the courts according to the regular course of legal procedure, and that remedy is pursued, there arises a case within the meaning of the Constitution, whether the subject of the litigation be property or status. ”

“ The words, the 'law of the land,' mean 'due process of law,' and this implies that there shall be some form of legal process, sufficient allegations or charge, due notice to the party proceeded against, the opportunity to answer to and contest the charge or allegations, and to be heard or tried in a legal and regular course of judicial proceedings, by an impartial judge. ”

“ The words 'due process of law,' when applied to judicial proceedings, 'mean a course of legal proceedings according to those rules and principles which have been established in our systems of jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private rights.' Pennoyer v. ”

“ That in cases where the guardian of any person of unsound mind, under the direction of any court of competent jurisdiction has made, or may hereafter make, sale of any lands of such person of unsound mind, the wife of such person of unsound mind may by her separate deed release and convey all her interest in and title to such land, and her deed so made shall thereafter debar her from all claim to such land, and shall have the same effect on her rights as if her husband had been of sound mind and she had joined with such husband in the execution of such conveyance. ”

“ Rights to do certain acts, such, for instance, as the visitation and superintendence of a college and the appointment of its officers, may surely be vested rights, to all legal intents, as completely as the right to possess property. ”

“ It is only necessary to state such a proposition, to expose its fallacy. Can it even be pretended that the indentures given in evidence are not such kinds of conveyance as are mentioned in the act of 24th February, 1770? A deed is a writing sealed and delivered by the parties. Releases are a discharge or conveyance of a man's right in lands or tenements to another, who hath some former estate or possession ”

“ In the first place, obligations are merely one class of duties, namely those which are the correlatives of rights in personam. An obligation is the vinculum juris, or bond of legal necessity, which binds together two or more determinate individuals. ”

“ There must be an intent to convey, and the delivery of a deed for the purpose of vesting a present title in the grantee, and a deed delivered without the consent of the grantor is of no more effect to pass title than if it were a forgery. ”

“ Work, 5 Bin. 158, it is said: 'An estate held by warrant and survey, or other imperfect title, without patent, is of a singular nature. In many, and indeed in most, respects it is considered as a legal estate against all persons but the commonwealth. ”

“ If the amount of a fee is settled by law, an attorney who takes more than the legal sum does not necessarily incur the duty of restitution. All will depend on the character of the law, whether it is penal or preceptive, and if preceptive, whether it obliges in virtue of legal or of commutative justice. ”

“ The act itself, with all the circumstances of the inhabitants before and at the time of its passage, have formed the subject of legal judgments and professional opinions upon which mighty interests have grown up and now repose. ”

“ Astor, 4 Pet. 1, 83, as follows: 'It is laid down generally that a recital of one deed in another binds the parties, and those who claim under them. Technically speaking, it operates as an estopp l and binds parties and privies,-privies in blood, privies in estate, and privies in law. But it does not bind mere strangers, or those who claim by title paramount the deed. It does not bind persons claiming by an adverse title, or persons claiming from the parties by title anterior to the date of the reciting deed. ”

“ These authorities, to which many more might added, are full and express to the point, that where a deed is the foundation of the claim, and can still be regarded as subsisting and in full force between the parties, the action to enforce its provisions must be upon the instrument itself. ”

“ The words of perpetuity employed in it are those only which in substance are employed in all deeds and grants, and such as it is customary and proper to employ where titles are to be confirmed by statute, and where natural or artificial persons incapable of holding lands are authorized by law to do so. ”

“ Justice FIELD, 'it appears from the inspection of the record of a court of general jurisdiction that the defendant, against whom a personal judgment or decree is rendered, was at the time of the alleged service without the territorial limits of the court, and thus beyond the reach of its process, and that he never appeared in the action, the presumption of jurisdiction over his person ceases, and the burden of establishing the jurisdiction is cast upon the party who invokes the benefit or protection of the judgment or decree. ”

“ If D have judgment against C, may he not lay an attachment in the hands of A, who holds a credit or chose in action against B for the benefit of C, especially if B. be out of the State?
2. The modern law recognizes the assignability of choses in action, operating an actual transfer proprio vigore of the title of the chose in action, or credit, from the assignor to the assignee, vesting the latter with all the rights of the former, the possession of the evidences, and the right to enforce the claim, as effectually as a bargain and a sale of lands. ”

“ Actions on the case shall be treated as expeditiously in the courts of the King's Bench and Common Pleas as actions of trespass or debt.
Proclamation at four court terms of a levy of a fine shall be a final end to an issue of land, tenements, or other hereditaments and the decision shall bind persons and their heirs, whether they have knowledge or not of the decision, except for women-covert who were not parties, persons under the age of twenty-one, in prison, out of the nation, or not of whole mind, who are not parties. ”

“ Section 4. Due Process of Law. No person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Private property may not be taken except for a public purpose with just compensation. ”

“ All persons, as well of high as of low estate, shall receive justice in the King's Court; and none shall take any such revenge or distress by his own authority, without award of our court, although he is damaged or injured, whereby he would have amends of his neighbor either higher or lower. ”

“ It will be as much a judgment that may be carried into effect by judicial process as one for money, or for the recovery of property, or a judgment in mandamus commanding the performance of an act or duty which the law requires to be performed, or a judgment prohibiting the doing of something which the law will not sanction. ”

“ Although it is my will that complete justice be observed in each case, I charge you that, in so far as may be possible, and can be rightly done, you settle the differences and suits which arise, without having recourse to the technicalities of the law or proceeding by the ordinary methods, or condemning to pecuniary fines; but observing throughout the provisions of the decrees that shall be given you. ”

“ We will first examine the correctness of the general position, that an action at law cannot be maintained upon a decree in equity; and will, in the next place, inquire how far the jurisdiction of the court pronouncing this decree, and the efficiency of its proceedings with reference to the parties before it, may be inferred or rightfully taken notice of, from its style or character, or from proper judicial knowledge of the subject-matter of its cognizance, independently of a particular special averment. ”

“ Legal procedure is a facility of rights, and rights achieved, its purpose is done. A successful litigant does not need the delay and provision of a rehearing. He has more efficient and enduring relief. ”

“ A real statute is that part of the law which deals directly with property, whether movable or immovable. A personal statute has for its object a person, and deals with questions of status, such as marriage, legitimacy or infancy. A mixed statute affects both property and person, or, according to some authorities, it deals with acts and obligations. ”

“ The doctrines upon the subjects of joint and several interests under a deed, and of the necessity or propriety for conformity with remedies for enforcing those interests to the nature of the interests themselves, have been maintained by a course of decision as unbroken and perspicuous, perhaps, as those upon which any other rule or principle can be shown to rest. ”

“ Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. ”

“ Wherever an act undertakes to determine a question of right or obligation, or of property, as the foundation upon which it proceeds, such act is to that extent a judicial one, and not the proper exercise of legislative functions. ”

“ That where a state law, statutory or customary, gives to the citizens of the state, in an action or suit inter partes, the right to question at law the probate of a will or to assail probate in a suit in equity, the courts of the United States, in administering the rights of citizens of other states or aliens, will enforce such remedies. ”

“ The property or the status is treated as being what has been so declared or decreed. For judgments in personam, decreeing the payment of a certain sum, the test of competence for the present purpose is again that the person against whom it was pronounced was subject to the jurisdiction by nationality or domicile; the judgment may then be sued on as giving of itself a good title to the sum decreed by it to be paid. For domestic purposes the competence may exist on quite other grounds. ”

“ The ecclesiastical courts had no jurisdiction over wills of land, and the common law courts were careful to keep the ecclesiastical courts within their limits by means of prohibition. No probate of a will of land was necessary, and title to real estate by will might be made by production of the will as a document of title. The liability of the executor and legatee for the debts of the testator has been gradually established by legislation. ”

“ Those in which the officer is directed to levy the process upon property of one of the parties to the litigation, sufficient to satisfy the demand against him, without describing any specific property to be thus taken. Of this class are the writ of attachment, or other mesne process, by which property is seized before judgment to answer to such judgment when rendered, and the final process of execution, elegit, or other writ, by which an ordinary judgment is carried into effect. ”

“ Recognizing the difficulty in defining with exactness the phrase "due process of law," it is certain that these words imply a conformity with natural and inherent principles of justice, and forbid that one man's property, or right to property, shall be taken for the benefit of another, or for the benefit of the State, without compensation; and that [p391] no one shall be condemned in his person or property without an opportunity of being heard in his own defence. ”