Case Name: Den on the demise of the Trustees of the University versus Thomas Rice
Court: North Carolina Court of Conference
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1804-06
Citations: 1 Cam. & Nor. 497
Docket Number: 
Parties: Den on the demise of the Trustees of the University, versus Thomas Rice.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 1
Pages: 497–499

Head Matter:
Den on the demise of the Trustees of the University, versus Thomas Rice.
This was an action of ejectment brought to recover a tract of land lying in the county of Granville. On the trial the jury found a special verdict, in substance, so far as is material to the questions of law, intended to be submitted to the court, as follows:
James Currin being seized in fee, of the land in question, and indebted to Young, Miller, & Co. in a large sum of money, on the first day of December, 1772, in consideration of the said debt, and of the further sum of five shillings to him paid, conveyed the said land to Young, Miller, & Co. in trust, to secure the said debt, and to be sold by them for the payment thereof. That the persons constituting the firm of Young, Miller, & Co. were, John Alston, James Young, James Morton, Alexander Grindley, Andrew Miller, William Littlejohn, and George Alston; that the said J. A. J. Y. J. M. and A. G. were, on the 4th day of July, 1776, subjects of his Britannic Majesty, and still are subjects of the King of Great Britain; that the said George Alston, and Andrew Miller, withdrew themselves from this State, in the year 1774, and removed beyond the limits of the United States, and continued beyond the limits of the said States, until after the year 1783; and that the said William Littlejohn is, and always since the 4th day of July, 1776, has been a citizen of this State.
1st. Whether the land in question, or any part thereof, vested in the State of North Carolina, by the declaration of independence and the event of the war, or by the acts of confiscation?
2d. Whether the debt stated in the record, is restored to Young, Miller, & Co. by the treaty of 1783; if so, is the land, being the security
for the payment of that debt, reverted in them to the uses mentioned in the deed?
3. Whether a naked trust, on the failure of a Trustee, vests in the State, or in the ces tui quetrust?
4th. If on failure of a Trustee, a trust coupled with an interest vests in the State, and that interest is afterwards restored to the individual, will the legal title pass with it?

Opinion:
By the Court.
This case coming up from a court of law, but the counsel concerned having consented that the court shall judge of this case in the same manner as they would do in a Court of Equity, they are therefore of opinion that according to the principle which prevails in Court of Equity, that the act of a Trustee, shall not prejudice the ces tui que trust, who is in that court the owner of that estate; that no confiscation has been operated in the present instance. Although the other Trustees, became disqualified, by the act of confiscation, in leaving the country, yet the competency of Littlejohn remained, and he was adequate to all the purposes for which the trust was created. Even had all the trustees, become subject to the principle established laws, yet according to the principle established in the Moravian cause, the State would have taken the land encumbered with trust. We think that as fruit estates, are the mere creatures of the Court of Equity, and by them so moulded as to obtain the ends of justice, any other construction in the present case, would be irreconcileable with the general doctrine on that subject.