Court Opinion

ID: 9807685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:12:55.761052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:51:10.309906
License: Public Domain

Walker, J.,
concurring in result: I yield my assent fully to the general principles stated in the Court’s opinion. There must not only be a physical delivery of a deed as the final act of execution, but it must be accompanied by an intent of the grantor to perfect the instrument. The question of delivery is. a mixed one of law and- fact. When the facts- are admitted or established, it is one of law. No special formulary of words or acts is prescribed as essential to the completeness of the instrument as the deed of the party sealing it, but when a present unqualified or unconditioned delivery has been made, the deed becomes immediately operative and is placed beyond the grantor’s recall. It can make no difference how long after-wards it is when he changes his mind, whether the interval be very short or very long, it will not change the result; the act of delivery is instantaneous, and the deed becomes irrevocable. This is what we decided in Fortune v. Hunt, 149 N. C., 358, where Justice Brown says: “When the maker of a deed delivers it to some third party for the grantee,-parting with the posses*215sion of it, without any condition or any direction as to bow be shall bold it for him, and without in some way reserving the right to repossess it, the delivery is complete and the title passes at once, although the grantee may be ignorant of the facts, and no subsequent act of the grantor or any one else can defeat the effect of such delivery.” The facts in this case are not disputed. The deed was written by L. A. ITaney, signed by the grantor, A. F. Huddleston, on 4 May, 1903, at his home, “who pushed or threw it across the table to Haney,” saying, at the time, “There it is.” He had stated that he wanted to “sign the deed to Baxter Hardy” and place it in his hands, for his use and benefit, and at different times told witness “that he intended for Baxter Hardy, the defendant, to have the land.” Haney took the deed, folded it up, and laid it down, and put the inkstand on it. The matter was then dropped for a full hour and a half, when, for the first time, he referred to the possibility that “his son might turn him off the land.” But the act of delivery was then complete, as much so as if the new matter had not been mentioned for a month afterwards. If nothing more had been said after the delivery to Haney, we would not hesitate to declare that a legal delivery had been effected, and that no locus penetentice was left to the grantor, or power of recall. "Why is not the same true, as to this deed, if after delivery the grantor “cannot by a subsequent act defeat the effect of the delivery,” as Justice Brown said in Fortune v. Hunt? It did not require one and a half hours to ripen the delivery into a perfect one. It was already a finished act. I might cite authorities without number to sustain these views, but they need no .such support. Our own decisions are quite sufficient for the purpose, and they are perfectly familiar to us. Some of them will be found in Robbins v. Rascoe, 120 N. C., 80; Hall v. Harris, 40 N. C., 303. The grantor delivered the deed and Haney took possession of it, at his request, for his son. It is the same as if the son had been there and received it in person. There was nothing to- explain or qualify this unequivocal act of delivery, and the law, therefore, adjudges it to be, in itself, sufficient to perfect the deed. The judge should have reversed his in*216struction and told tbe jury to answer tbe first issue “No” and tbe second issue “Tes,” i£ tbey believed tbe evidence or found tbe facts according to the testimony. Tbe case falls manifestly within tbe second and third classes stated in tbe Court’s opinion. Bond v. Wilson, 129 N. C., 325, 330. What tbe grantor said after tbe execution of tbe deed was clearly an afterthought.