Case ID: mass_14/html/0300-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam..\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hannah Clark versus Israel Munroe.
    Where a husband received a conveyance of land in fee, and at the same ume mortgaged it to a third person, and the mortgage was afterwards foreclosed, his widow had no right to dower from such instantaneous seisin of her husband.
    This was a writ of dower, which was tried, at the last April term in this county, before Jackson, J. The facts in the case shortly were, that James Andrews and his wife, on the 7th of May, 1805, conveyed the premises, of which the demandant claims to be endowed, to William Clark, her late husband; and that the said William, by his deed, dated and executed at the same time, mortgaged the same premises to one James Winthrop in fee; both which deeds were acknowledged and recorded at the same time; that the said James Winthrop was then the guardian of one Charles Winthrop, a minor, to whom he afterwards assigned them; that the said Charles afterwards entered and foreclosed the said mortgage, and assigned the premises to the present tenant.
    It was also in evidence that the consideration of the said deed from Andrews and his wife to said Clark was the property of the said Charles Winthrop, and that the said mortgage was made in pursuance of a previous agreement between all the parties to both deeds, to secure the said consideration for the use and benefit ot the said Charles.
    
    The judge directed the jury that, in consequence of the said agreement, and the execution of said deeds pursuant thereto, the said William had only such an instantaneous seisin as would not entitle the demandant to recover her dower in the said premises.
    The demandant excepted to this opinion of the judge, * and the cause came before the Court at this term upon the said exception.
    
      Newton for the demandant.
    
      Lincoln for the tenant.
   Per Curiam..

In the case of Holbrook vs. Finney, it was decided that a conveyance in fee, and a reconveyance by the grantee to the grantor in mortgage, being considered as parts of the same transaction, did not give to the grantee such a seisin as entitled his wife to have dower in the granted premises. In the case at bar, the mortgage was to a third party; but still the whole constituted but one transaction. We are not able to view the case in any light different from what it would have presented had the mortgage of Clark been made to Andrews and his wife instead of Winthrop.

Judgment for the tenant on the verdict. 
      
       4 Mass. Rep. 566.
     
      
      
         [Coates vs. Cheever, 1 Cowens Rep. 460 —Ed.]