Case ID: va_30/html/0780-01.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

Maitland and Another v. Newton, Adm’r &c.
    May, 1832.
    (Absent Tucker, P.)
    Deeds of Trust — Construction—What Passes — Case at Bar. — A deed of trust and assignment of effects, made by a debtor to trustees, for the benefit of his creditors, in 1809, Conveys and assigns to the trustees, all the d ebtor’s estate real and personal in Virginia or elsewhere, upon trust, that the trustees shall collect all the debts due or to become due to the grantor, on account of transactions prior to the deed, and shall sell the real and personal estate, and institute suits at law or in equity for the recovery of the debts due the grantor, to be applied to the purposes of the trust: the board of commissioners sitting under the treats' between the U. States and Spain of February 1819, award a sum of money to the adm’r of the grantor, for and on account of claims on the Spanish government for spoliations before the date of the deed of trust — Held, this money passed by the deed to the trustees for the purposes of the trust.
    Bj' deed, dated the 25th November 1809, William Pennock late of Norfolk, conveyed and assigned to Maitland, Armistead and Wilson, trustees, and the survivors or survivor of them, all his estate real and personal whether the same were in Virginia or elsewhere; upon trust, that the trustees, or the survivors or survivor of them, should collect all the debts due or to become due, to Pennock, for or on account of any matter or thing prior to the date of the deed, and should sell the said real and personal estate, when and on such terms as they should think most conducive to the purposes of the trust, and out of the proceeds of the collections of debts and of the sales, after defraying expenses incurred in the execution of the trust, should pay, 1st, certain debts to certain preferred creditors specified in *a schedule annexed to the deed; and 2ndfy, all other debts due from Pennock; provided the creditors of the second class, before the}' should be entitled to receive the amounts due them, or dividends thereof, out of the trust fund, should, in consideration thereof, release Pennock from all further demands. And Pennock thereby constituted the trustees his attorneys (without power of revocation) for him and in his name, and for the purposes of the trust, to demand and receive all sums of money to him due, or to become due and payable, from any person or persons whomsoever, for or on account of any matter or thing prior to the date of the deed; and on receipt of payment, to give acquittances; or, in cases of non-payment, to institute suits in law or equity for. recovery thereof.
    Pennock died in 1816, and Newton, who was one of his creditors not provided for by the deed, took administration of his estate.
    The board of commissioners sitting at Washington, under the 11th article of the treaty of amity, settlement and limits, between the U. States and the king of Spain, of February 1819, awarded to Newton, as the administrator of Pennock, the sum of 15,471 dollars, for and on account of claims of Pennock, which originated before the date of the deed of trust; and Newton received the money from the treasury of the U. States.
    And upon a bill exhibited in the supe-riour court of chancery of Williamsburg, by Maitland and Wilson, the surviving trustees named in Pennock’s deed of trust (the other trustee Armistead being dead) against Newton as administrator of Pennock and in his own right, the question was, Whether the money received by Newton, under the award of the commissioners, belonged to him as assets of Pennock’s estate, to be disposed of in due pourse of administration, or to the trustees, to be applied to the purposes of the trust? in other words, Whether Pennock’s claims against Spain, passed by the deed of trust?
    *The chancellor was of opinion, that those claims did not pass by the deed, and therefore dismissed the bill. And Maitland and Wilson appealed to this court.
    Stanard, for the appellants,
    said he had no doubt the chancellor’s decree was founded on the authority of Mr. justice Washington’s opinion in Vasse v. Come-g3rs, 4 Wash. C. C. R. 570, but the judgment of the circuit court in that case, had been reversed by the supreme court of the U. States; Comegysv. Vasse, 1 Peters, 193. The authority of this judgment of the supreme court, and the reasoning- on which it was founded, he said, were directly in point to the present case, and decisive, that the appellants were entitled to the money in question, for the purposes of the trust declared by Pennock’s deed of November 1809.
    Johnson, for the appellees,
    argued, very strenuously, 1. That Pennock’s claims upon Spain, out of which the money in question arose, were not, in their nature, debts due to Pennock, in any sense of the word; they were not claims founded on contract, but claims for losses incurred by illegal seizures made by the Spanish government; by spoliations, in fact, on american commerce. 2. That these claims of Pen-nock, whatever the nature of them might be, did not pass to the trustees, by Pen-nock’s deed of trust of November 1809, either by' the words of that instrument fairly interpreted, or by the intent of the parties to be collected from it, upon the most liberal construction. The case of Comegys v. Vasse turned upon the construction of the bankrupt law of the U. States; this case depends on the construction and effect of a deed of assignment; and every such deed must operate according to its own peculiar provisions. He argued, that these claims on Spain did not pass under the general description of the subject contained in the deed of trust, all Pennock’s estate, real and personal, whether in Virginia or elsewhere; for the provision, that the trustees *should sell the said real and personal estate, plainly evinced, that those general words were intended to compiise specific property only ; property capable of sale. Neither did these claims pass among the debts which the trustees were to collect, and apply to the purposes of the trust; since it was obvious that the debts which it was intended they should collect, were such debts, as that, in case payment thereof should be refused, the trustees might institute suits, in law or equity, for the recovery of them. Now, certainly, Pennock’s claims upon Spain, claims for retribution from a foreign sovereign, for property taken by force, in violation of the laws of nations, could never be asserted in any form of judicial proceedings.
    
      
      Deeds of Trust — Construction —The principal case is cited in foot-note to Wickham v. Lewis Martin Co., 13 Gratt. 427; Lewis v. Glenn, 84 Va. 965, 6 S. E. Rep. 866. See monographic note on “Deeds of Trust” appended to Cadwallader v. Mason, Wythe 188.
    
   CARR, J.

The simple question is, Whether the deed of trust conveying all Pennock’s estate, real and personal, in Virginia or elsewhere, comprehended his claim on the government of Spain, for spoliations committed on his property by her vessels, and retained under unjust decisions of her courts? That the deed does pass this claim, I can have no shadow of doubt. I have no idea of a right or interest vested in a man, which would not pass under a conveyance of all his real and personal estate, more especially when we consider, that this was the deed of an insolvent debtor, conveying and assigning his effects, for the payment of his debts, so far as the fund would go, and obtaining for such conveyance, a complete release from his creditors. This opinion is intirely supported by the decision of the supreme court in Comegys v. Vasse. This was a case under the bankrupt law, which conveyed to the assignees, “all the estate real and personal, of every nature and description, to which the bankrupt may be entitled either in law or equity;” words not a whit more comprehensive than those used in this deed. Upon those words of the bankrupt law, judge Story, delivering the opinion of the court, says, they “are very general and comprehensive” — “broad enough to cover every description of right and interest attached to and growing *out of property. Under such words, the whole property of a testator would pass to his dev-isee. Whatever the administrator would take, in case of intestacy, would seem capable of passing by such words.”

I am, therefore, for reversing the decree, and remanding the cause, with a declaration, that Pennock’s claims on the Spanish government passed by the deed of trust to the trustee, for the purposes of the trust; that, therefore, the appellee is liable to the appellants, for the money he has received on account of those claims, or for so much thereof as shall be necessary to discharge and satisfy the debts due to the creditors entitled to the benefit of the trust fund, with interest on such debts; and that, if there shall be any residue remaining after those debts shall be fully discharged and satisfied, such residue shall be considered as assets in the hands of the appellee, to be applied in due course of administration.

The other judges concurred. Decree reversed.