Case Name: David S. Jeter, vs. E. L. Glenn
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1856-05
Citations: 9 Rich. 374
Docket Number: 
Parties: David S. Jeter, vs. E. L. Glenn.
Judges: O’Neall, Withers, Whitner, Glover and Munro, JJ., concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 43
Pages: 374–381

Head Matter:
David S. Jeter, vs. E. L. Glenn.
Covenants, in a conveyance of land in fee simple, for future acts or against future evils, as, for instance, covenants for quiet enjoyment, run with the land: for breach of such a covenant after the accrual of his right, tho assignee may sue in his own name.
The general warranty in the form of conveyance prescribed by the Act of 1795 (5 Stat. 266) contains the following covenants, to wit, (1) that the vendor is seized in fee; (2) that he has right to convey; (S) that the vendee, his heirs and assigns, shall quietly enjoy; (4) and that free from all incumbrances; and also, it seems, (5) a covenant for further assurances.
A contingent right of dower in a wife whose husband is living at the date of the conveyance, is an incumbrance against which the general warranty is intended to protect the vendee.
In an action for breach of warranty in a conveyance of land, where the vendor was vouched in the action against the plaintiff, which was for dower, the costs of that action, as well as the amount assessed in lieu of dower, may be recovered, but not counsel fees paid by the plaintiff.
BEFORE GLOYER, J., AT UNION, SPRING TERM, 1856.
The report of his Honor, the presiding Judge, is as follows :
“ The action was covenant, and the following statement of the facts agreed to and submitted by counsel, will fully explain the case. James B. Glenn being seized and possessed of a tract of land. lying in the District and State aforesaid, and becoming involved, the land was sold at sheriff,’s sale, under executions against him, and bid off by D. Thomson ,Sims, representing himself as the agent of the defendant, (E. L. Glenn.) After the purchase, defendant executed a power of attorney to Sims, to sell and convey the land, and to make titles. Sims, acting under said power of attorney, conveyed, on the 3d of February, 1848, to Ferdinand Scaife, in the usual form of our deed, with the following warranty: ‘ And I do hereby bind myself, my heirs, executors, and administrators, to warrant and forever defend all and singular the said premises, unto the said F. Scaife, his heirs and assigns, against me and my heirs, and all other" persons whomsoever, lawfully claiming or to claim the same, or any part thereof.’
“ On the 4th of January, 1851, Seaife, by deed duly executed, conveyed to the plaintiff, with the following warranty: ‘ And I do hereby bind myself, my heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, to warrant and forever defend all and singular the said premises, unto the said David S. Jeter, his heirs and assigns, against myself, my heir3 and assigns, and against L. B. Jeter, on a line running nearly east and west.’
“ At Pali Term, 1853, suit was commenced against the plaintiff, by Mrs. Mitchell, widow of D. A. Mitchell, (who owned the land anterior to James B. Glenn, and who died on the 24th of November, 1851,) and on the 6th of October, 1854, a verdict was rendered in her favor, whereupon commissioners in dower assessed the sum of $ in lieu of her dower, for which execution issued against the plaintiff, and which has since been paid by him. The plaintiff vouched E. L. Glenn to defend the suit.
“ This suit is brought by plaintiff, as assignee of P. Seaife, against Glenn, on his warranty to Seaife, to recover the amount of the assessment in dower and costs.
“ Under the instructions .of the presiding Judge, the jury found for the plaintiff the amount assessed for dower, without the costs.”
The defendant appealed, and now moved this Court for a new trial, on the grounds:
1. Because there is no privity of contract between the plaintiff and defendant.
2. Because the assignee of the covenant cannot maintain the action in his own name. .
3. Because the covenant was not broken; and if broken, the suit is barred by the statute of limitations. . ,
4. Because the ruling of his Honor, it is respectfully submitted, is in other respects erroneous..
The plaintiff also moved for a new trial on the ground that he was entitled to recover all the costs and counsel fees expended by him in defending the action of dower.
Arthur, for appellant,
cited 1 N. & McC. 104; 1 Ch. PI. Ill; 6 Each. 208; 1 Saund. 241; Carth. 182; 4 Kent, 470, 471 note a, 472; Jac. L. D. Privity; Cro. Eliz. 63 ; 2 Lev. 26; 4 B. & P. 158.
Thompson, contra.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Wardlaw, J.
The covenant of the defendant is according to the form contained in our Act of 1795, (5 Stat. 266,) and is what we usually call the general warranty.
The ingenious argument, which has been presented on the part of the defendant,- to show that the assignee of such a general covenant cannot maintain an action thereon in his own name, is founded upon the confusion which has been produced by the different senses in which the term real in its application.. to covenants has been used; and upon a difference which Seems to obtain between English and American authorities concerning the right of an assignee under a covenant of seizin,, a covenant of power to convey, a covenant of present freedom from' incumbrances, or other covenant for title which m.a,y be broken as soon as made. It is unnecessary to enter inpo explanation now. Those who choose to examine the subject will'find 'enough to direct, if not to satisfy, their inquiries, in Platt on Covenants, Ch. 2, Sect. 4; Ch. 11; Sugden on Vendors, Ch. 13; 4 Kent, Com. L. 67; 2 Bla. Com. 300-5.
Whatever maybe thought the true doctrine as to those covenants last mentioned, whereby the present condition of things is stipulated, there is no doubt that under a covenant with a vendee and his assigns, for future acts, or against future evils (sucji as a covenant that the grantor will make further assurance, or that the grantee and his assigns shall quietly enjoy, or shall enjoy free from all incumbrance,) an assignee's claim of damages for a breach subsequent to the accrual of his right, is not subject to the common law objection against the assign-' ment of a chose in action; and, that all covenants connected with the estate, and beneficial only to its owner, run with the land, whether we choose to bring them under some definition of real covenants, or call them, as distinguished from the ancient warranty, personal covenants. A covenant is beneficial only to the owner of the estate, when it is such that for the breach of it, not occurring until the land has descended to an heir, the executor of the covenantee could make no complaint, or from a breach of it subsequent to a conveyance to an assignee, the assignee only would sustain damage.
In the case of Brisbane vs. McCrady, (1 N. & McC. 104,) decided in 1818, (our leading case concerning an assignee's right under covenants running with the land,) the covenant was, that the land was free from ineumbranees, which, in passing, we may observe, was treated just as if it had been a covenant that the grantee and his assigns should, enjoy, and that free from ineumbranees. If the covenant in,* before us is not distinguishable in effect from case, the assignee under the authority of tha1 tain his action here.
It is said, that the covenant now in hand is nant of seisin. The case of Mackey vs. Collins, 2 N. & McC. 186,) decided in 1819, that our general warrantj^lir the effe of a covenant of seisin, and that an action would litISiir^%^|ire eviction, as by defect of title it was broken as soon as made. That case was followed by Johnson vs. Veal, (3 McC. 449,) and by many cases since, which have held, that an action brought before eviction for breach of the covenant of seisin, is, under the peculiar provision of our statute of limitations in relation to actions of covenant, barred after four years from the date of the covenant. But it has never been decided that our statutory covenant is nothing more than a covenant of seisin. The difficulty was to find the covenant of seisin in it, not to perceive in it other matters more plainly manifest. The case of Pringle vs. Witten, 1 Bay, 256, decided before the Act of 1795, was upon a lease and release that contained an express covenant of seisin ; but words concerning " a covenant for good title and for the whole quantity," which in the report are ascribed to the Court, led to the decision in Mackey vs. Collins, after Sumter vs. Welsh, (2 Bay, 558); Furman vs. Elmore, (2 N. & McC. 189); and other cases had established the right of a purchaser to show before eviction, deficiency of title in defence of an action for the purchase-money. All of these cases, however, indeed all of our cases on the subject, from Hunt vs. Lewis, (1 Bay, 159,) down, have held that of a covenant for quiet enjoyment, there is no breach before eviction or its equivalent, and this last-mentioned case declared proof of eviction to be necessary to the action when the covenant was to warrant and defend. It is much more consistent with the form of the covenant and with the natural sense of its terms, to say that our general warranty contains a covenant for quiet enjoyment free from incumbrance,.than to say that it contains a covenant of seisin. It is advancing the purpose of the Legislature, promoting the usual intention of parties, and subserving the ends of justice, to say that it contains all the five covenants which English conveyancers usually insert in conveyances in fee simple, to wit.: first, that the vendor is seised in fee; second, that he has right to convey; (which two are synonympus, except where the conveyance is made under a power distinct from the seisin;) third, that the vendee, his heirs and assigns, shall quietly enjoy; fourth, and that free from all incumbrances; (which last two may be united in one;) and fifth, for further assurances. Of the fifth only there is doubt; but as to all rights acquired by the vendor subsequently to his conveyance, the application of the doctrine of estoppel, to some extent, answers the purpose of this covenant, and perhaps recognizes its existence in a general warranty. (See Craig vs. Reeder, 3 McC. 411.) The vendor has full liberty to modify the covenants according to his agreement, and when he inserts only the- general warranty, the large, unlimited obligation plainly expressed thereby, may' well be understood to embrace all the usual covenants for title. It is enough for this ease, however, to show that it includes either the third or the fourth of those covenants as above enumerated ; and that it includes both of them, we think has been all along a conceded point, from which the efforts made in our cases before cited to find' the covenant of seisin have started. In all of those cases, if there had been eviction there would have been no doubt, and the plaintiff, who in any of them alleging a covenant of seisin, was barred by the statute of limitations, might afterwards, upon allegation of a1 covenant for quiet enjoyment, and proof of an eviction, have recovered in a new action brought within due time after the eviction.
But taking our general warranty according to its words, without any reference to the usual covenants for title, and interpreting the word warrant according to its modern sense, we see that a covenant " to warrant and forever defend all and singular the premises against all persons lawfully to claim the same or any part thereof," binds the covenantor to defend every portion of the land conveyed, against all suits of which due notice shall be given to him, and in case of the lawful eviction of the vendee or his assigns, to pay the legal damages occasioned thereby. Future acts, future evil, and future indemnity, are plainly contemplated, and obscurity can be imputed only to the stipulation as to present right, which has been held to be involved.
The preceding observations dispose of all the defendant's objections except that which has been grounded upqn a dis tinction between a right of dower consummated by the death of the dowress' husband before the date of the conveyance, and a contingent right existing in a wife, whose husband was then living. The former was the dower considered an incumbrance in the case of Brisbane vs. McCrady, the latter is theAower that has damnified the plaintiff in this case. There is no difference. (Whatever may have been the nature of the right to dower at the time of the warranty, it has since become perfect, and had by suit at law been established against the plaintiff to his loss. It was something against which the warrantor took the risk and Was bound to defend. It was an\ incumbrance, that is, a right from which diminution of value might result to the vendee, which yet did not prevent the immediate passing of the title to him. It is npt in principle to be distinguished from a mortgage of which the condition is not yet broken, or other contingent interest threatening, but not sure, to fall upon the land, which a vendor's knowledge of his title might have detected, and a sufficient consideration has induced him to guard against. Our case of Polk vs. Sumter, (2 Strob. 81,) holds that, even during the lifetime of her husband, a wife's dower unrelinquished may be shown by a purchaser, as an excuse for his refusal to comply with a contract to purchase,
The plaintiff has then properly recovered the amount which was assessed for the dower; but he too appeals, and urges his right to recover further the taxed costs in the dower case, and his counsel fee paid in defending it. As to the costs he is right. He must recover what was recovered against him, the sum assessed and costs, with interest thereon. To this extent as appears by a record to which the defendant was made a privy by notice, the incumbrance has diminished the value of the land that was conveyed. In all recoveries upon warranty, where there has been eviction, and the law has prescribed the purchase money and interest us the measure of damages, the taxed costs of the eviction are added. See 2 N. & McC. 190, 199. But there is no authority for including counsel fees in the damages recoverable upon contracts. See Sedgwick on Damages, 99,—103. In the case of Legare vs. Frazer, 3 Strob. 380, counsel fees were recovered by an agent against his principal as part of the expenditure which the agent had made in and about the business of the principal.
The defendant's motion is then dismissed; and the plaintiff's motion is granted so as to permit him to have a new trial, if previous thereto, he will give one month's notice to the defendant of his intention to require it, unless the defendant shall, on or before the first Monday of September next, pay the taxed costs aforesaid.
O'Neall, Withers, Whitner, Glover and Munro, JJ., concurred.
New trial nisi.