Case ID: wright_1/html/0145-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "LANE, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MORGAN AND OTHERS v. LESLIE AND OTHERS.
    Trespass — Methodist societies — religious societies holding land — life estate transmuted to a fee — trustees.
    Where lands are conveyed to individuals and their successors, they not being a corporation, a life estate in law is vested in the grantees, and at their death the lands revert to the grantor, the equitable estate may remain, and if so, chancery will enforce the trust.
    The legislature, to avoid the inconvenience of such a state of things in reference to churches, &c., vested a new legal estate in the trustees of such societies, and invested them with corporate powers, passing the perpetual succession to such trustees. By this law the former fee is extinguished, and the same effect results as from the statute of uses in England, which divested the holder of the legal estate of his title, and transmuted the equitable interest of the cestui que use, into a legal estate.
    The act prohibiting a religious society from holding more than twenty acres for its use, is to be understood as applicable to that religious congregation for whose use the land is wanted, or to that society who meet for worship in . any one place. The Methodist society in any particular place of worship is not prevented from holding such twenty acres, because other Methodist societies under the same general church government have many times more than twenty acres in their different societies or congregations.
    Trespass. This suit was brought by the plaintiffs, who are the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Society, to try the right of possession to a church, against the defendants, trustees of the reformed Methodist Society, who continue to preach and use the house. It was submitted to the court upon an agreed case.
    In 1810 a conveyance was made to the defendants as trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church, of the ground for a meeting-house according to the form of deeds in the book of discipline, of the M. E. Society. The plaintiffs are the present trustees of the society. The defendants having seceded, the Methodist Episcopal Society have been expelled from the house.
    
      Goddard and Stillwell, for the plaintiffs.
    
      S. W. Culbertson, W. Silliman and James, for the defendants.
   LANE, J.

The deed to the defendants and their successors, they not being a corporation, vests, in law, a life estate only in the grantees. The equitable estate may subsist for the benefit of the society, and chancery may enforce the trust, but the legal fee, after the determination of the lives, reverts to the grantor and his heirs. To prevent the evil consequences resulting from this operation of the law, the legislature have exercised a salutary power, and by statute 145] *29 O. L. 464, have created a new legal estate in the board of trustees, elected according to the usages of the society, who are invested with corporate powers. This law provides for such estates as are conveyed to religious societies, passing in perpetual succession to such trustees as shall from time to time be elected by such society according to its rules, and empowers such trustees for the time being, to sue, and do all acts deemed necessary for the preservation and improvement of the property, that individuals might do as to their own property. By the operation of this law, the former legal fee is extinguished. The same effect is wrought by this statute as resulted from the operation of the statute of uses, where the holder of the estate, at law, was divested of his title, and the equitable interest of the cestui que use was transmuted into a legal estate.

It is urged that the law does not permit more than twenty acres to be appropriated to the use of any society, and the quantity in the Methodist Society of the United States already far exceeds that quantity. We give a more restricted meaning to the word “ society,” andhold that it is applicable to that religious congregation for whose-use the land is wanted for the purposes expressed in the act, or to that society who meet for worship in any one place. And although this deed was made before the passage of the act, we hold it perfectly within the power of the legislature to mould or change the tenure of property, in such manner as will best conduce to its due enjoyment by its legitimate owner.

Judgment for the plaintiffs under the agreement.

[Title of trustees not subject for chancery suit; Harper v. Crawford, 13 O. 129, 130.]