Case ID: va_29/html/0422-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CARR, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Randolph v. Randolph &c.
    February, 1831.
    (Absent Coalter, J.)
    Equity Jurisdiction — Determination of Property Rights. —Bill in chancery, stating that plaintiff is entitled to fee simple and absolute estate in certain real and personal property held by her; but that defendants insist she has only a life estate, remainder to them; and praying a decree declaring and settling, hef rights: Held, the court has no jurisdiction to entertain such a bill.
    Mary Tabb derived from her father, by descent and distribution, a large estate real and personal; and, in November 3800, she being then an infant, and about to marry Bathurst Randolph, articles of agreement were entered into between them, the declared object of which was, to settle her fortune (with certain exceptions) upon her and her heirs. The marriage took place ; a son was born ; she attained to full age: and then she and her husband joined in a deed conveying all of her estate comprised in the marriage articles, to R. E. Meade, who re-conveyed it to the husband. Upon this, her mother as the next friend of her infant son &c. exhibited a bill in chancery against Randolph and wife, to set aside their deed to Meade, and his re-conveyance to Randolph, and to have the marriage articles specifically executed, The chancellor dismissed the bill, but on appeal to this court, the decree was reversed. See the report of the case, Tabb & al. v. Archer & al. and Randolph & al. v. Randolph & al., 3 Hen. & Munf. 399, 431, 2. And this court directed, that the deeds from Randolph and wife to Meade, and from Meade to Randolph, should be cancelled : and “That the said Bathurst Randolph and Mary his wife should, within a certain time to be limited by the court of chancery, by deed of bargain and sale or other sufficient conveyance, convey to such person'or persons as the court of chancery should name as trustees for that purpose, all the estate, real and personal, which was of the said Mary on the 19th November 1800, (except as in the marriage articles was excepted) together with the progeny of the slaves, and the ^increase of the stocks of horses &c. if any, which had come to the hands or possession of the said Randolph and Mary his wife, or either of them, or of any other person to the use of them, or either of them; the lands and other real estate, in fee simple, and the slaves and other personal estate in absolute property; upon trust, to permit the said Randolph to take and receive the rents, issues and profits of the same, during the joint lives of the said Randolph and Mary his wife and their issue (if any) without resorting to or applying any of the original stock to that purpose^; and from and after the death of either of them the said Randolph and Mary his wife, to permit the survivor to take and receive the rents, issues and profits, in like manner, for the like purpose, under the like restriction; and from and after the death of such survivor, to hold the said estate real and personal so to be conveyed to them, to the use of all and every child or children of the said Mary, born or to be born of her present marriage, which should be living at the time of the decease of the said Mary, and the descendants of such of the children of the said Mary as might die before her (if any such there should be), as parceners, in parcenary, agreeably to the 16th section of thf statute of descents; and in default of such issue of the said Mary living at the time of her death, then, from and after the death of the survivor of them the said Randolph and Mary his wife, the trusts so to be created to cease and determine, and the estate embraced by the said marriage articles, and settlement so to be made, to descend and pass to such persons, and in such proportions, as if such articles and settlement had never been made.”
    This decree was entered in the court of chancery in June 1809; the deeds executed in violation of the marriage articles, were annulled; and the chancellor appointed trustees, and directed Randolph and wife, on or before the tenth day of the term next after they shortld be served with a copy of the decree, to make and execute to those trustees, a good and sufficient deed conveying and settling the subject in conformity *with the decree of this court. But there the business stopped; no such deed was ever executed, and so the legal estate was never vested in the trustees named by the chancellor ; nor did they ever take upon themselves the trust, nor even (it seemed) have any notice of their appointment.
    Bathurst Randolph the husband, and the issue of the marriage (there were two children), being all dead, Mary the wife, exhibited her bill in the superiour court of chancery of Richmond, setting forth the facts as above detailed; complaining, that, though all possibility of issue of the marriage was now gone, and though all the purposes of the settlement were accomplished or at an end, yet her next of kin, namely, her mother, brothers and sisters, insisted, and counsel advised them, that she had only a life interest in the estate, with remainder to them, and this claim operated as a clog upon the property, which she insisted was now wholly and absolutely her own ; making her mother, brothers and sisters, and the trustees named by the chancellor’s decree of June 1809, parties defendants ; and praying a decree of the court declaring and settling her rights. The trustees, in answer to the bill, said they had never had any thing to do with the subject, and had either never heard, or had forgotten, that they were appointed. And the defendants, the next of kin to the plaintiff, in their answer, said they did not admit the construction and effect of the decrees upon the subject, to be as the plaintiff claimed they were, and submitted the matter of law to the court.
    The chancellor, declaring that it was not competent to him to give any other construction to the marriage articles than that which the court of appeals had given 1o them, without saying what that construction was, dismissed the bill.
    The plaintiff appealed to this court.
    The cause was argued here by Johnson for the appellant;
    briefly upon the merits, as to which he thought there could be no doubt ; but he very earnestly endeavoured to maintain the jurisdiction of the court of chancery to entertain *such a bill as this ; which was the point of difficulty in this court.
   CARR, J.

The court has nodifficulty as to the construction and effect of the former decree of this court, directing the settlement, according to the marriage articles between Bathurst Randolph and his wife Mary, the plaintiff in this suit. The whole aspect of the case, and all the reasoning of the court in its decree, lead to the same conclusion. Here was an infant with a large estate real and personal : it was important to protect her property from the marital rights of her intended husband, and to provide for the issue of the marriage : her mother, therefore, procured the marriage articles to be executed. The sole object of them, as this court properly concluded, was a provision for the wife, the husband, and the issue of the marriage. The articles were between the intended husband and wife alone ; no consideration moved from any other person ; no collaterals were the objects of any of its provisions. The fee simple and absolute property being in the wife, was so far to be restricted as was necessary for these purposes, but no further. Therefore, this court, after directing a formal settlement to be made, in conformity with its understanding of the marriage articles, expressly declared and provided, that it should be inserted in the settlement to be made, that if, and whenever, those purposes should be accomplished, or become impossible, the trusts should cease, and the estate be and remain as if the settlement had never been made. And is not this precisely the present state of the case ? The children of the marriage all dead without issue ; the husband dead, so as to render it impossible that there ever should be issue of the marriage ; the marriage agreement and settlement being now as if they had never existed ; must not the plaintiff Mary have the same rights in her estate as she originally had ?

This point of the case, therefore, has presented no difficulty to the court; and if the deed directed by this court *to be made to trustees, had been made, am^they had thus been clothed with the legal estate in the property, and the plaintiff had filed her bill to have the estate reconveyed to her, upon the ground that the purposes of the trust were satisfied; the court would have had no difficulty in decreeing the prayer of such a bill. But the present is a different case. By the decree of this court and the court of chancery, the deeds executed by Randolph and wife, to Meade, and by Meade to Randolph, were annulled ; and the deed to the trustees, never having been executed by Randolph and wife, the original title, the fee simple in the land, and absolute property in the personalty, are now vested in the wife, as at first, free from all control. She has also the use, possession and enjoyment of all her property, and no one is disturbing her. What right, then, has she to come into court ? The trustees, clearly, can give her no interruption, and have never dreamed of interfering. But she complains that some of her next of kin, and some persons learned in the law, are of opinion, that under the decree of this court, she has only a life estate in her property, and her mother, brothers and sisters, and their descendants, are entitled to the remainder in fee; and it is to settle this question, that a decree is asked of the court. Has the court jurisdiction of such a case ? This is neither a bill of peace, a bill quia timet, nor a bill to perpetuate evidence ; but a bill calling on a court of equity to decide, whether the plaintiff has a fee simple, or an estate for life only, in real and personal estate ; and the defendants, who are brought forward to litigate this title, are remaindermen, at most, whose titles, according to the plaintiff’s shewing, may not come in esse during their lives. The cases are, we think, decisive to shew, that such a bill cannot be entertained. Welby v. Duke of Rutland, 2 Bro. P. C. 39; Pelham v. Gregory, 3 Id. 204; Adderly v. Sparrow, in canc. Hill, 1779, Mitf. plead. 154 ; Devonsher v. Newenham, 2 Scho. & Lefr. 197, in which last case, lord Redesdale reviews the cases on the point. And upon this ground, and on this only, the chancellor’s decree dismissing the bill, is to be affirmed.