Court Opinion

ID: 9811132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:10:36.300533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:32.024747
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
concurring; The “Eule in Shelley’s case” has come before this Court so often that it may not be amiss to say something of the origin and reason for the rule.
The decision was brought about' by litigation over a settlement made by Sir William Shelley, a judge of the common pleas, as to an estate which he had purchased at the dissolution of Sion Monastery. Though Judge Shelley died in 1549, the case did not come up for hearing till Easter Term, 1581, and after long argument was decided.by an assembly of all the judges presided over by Lord Chancellor Bromley. The rule, therefore, has not come down to us like so much of the “common law” (which is simply judge-made law) with an origin dating back to some obscure and unknown judge whose opinion was repeated by successive judges because some other judge had said the same thing before.
The Eeformation in England was caused as much, if not more, by economic reasons than by conflict of religious convictions. It was largely a revolt against the concentration of so great a part of the lands of the realm in the hands of the Church in priories and monasteries. When Henry VIII. procured the dissolution of all these foundations, instead of dividing the lands thus taken back among the people, which would have been an unheard of thing in those days, or even selling them for the benefit of the crown, he divided the most of them among his courtiers. It was either by such donation or by purchase from one who was a donee of the king that this estate came into Judge Shelley’s hands.
The object of the rule, the law writers state, was to secure the feudal owners of lands against the loss of wardships and other “rake offs” upon which the feudal lords lived at a time when land was the principal wealth and the foundation of dignity and influence. The rule is a highly technical one, for it contradicts the plain expression of the in*92tent of the grantor or devisor, and could only bave been laid down under the pressure of some such motive from a powerful class. It bas lead to nxucb litigation, but the feudal lords needed sucb protection against the loss of those feudal incidents wbicb would bave been ousted if the heir of the grantee or devisee bad taken as purchaser and not as successor. Tbe rule was first reported 1 Coke Reports, 93 B.
In 1660, at tbe restoration of tbe monarchy, one of the conditions exacted for tbe return of Charles II. was tbe abolition of all feudal tenures (with a slight exception), and with it tbe reason of tbe rule ceased; but having been once laid down, it was continued in England, like so many other outworn things, and was brought over to this country.
Tbe rule at this time serves an excellent but an entirely different-purpose in this State, in that it prevents the tying up of real estate by making possible its transfer one generation earlier, and also subjecting it to the payment of the debts of the first taker. It is doubtless for this reason that the rule bas never been repealed in North Carolina.
Tbe best work, and probably the only one that bas treated the rule with any clearness, is “Contingent Remainders and Executory Devises,” by Fearne, the possessor of a wonderfully analytic mind, who treated the whole subject with marvelous clearness. It was written to combat a decision by the great Lord Mansfield in Perrin v. Blake, and had the effect of reversing that decision.