Court Opinion

ID: 9809864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:30:31.956232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:46.451602
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting: It is elementary that delivery is essential to a deed. In my opinion, there is no evidence whatever of a delivery in tbis case; on tbe contrary, tbe facts show conclusively that there was no attempted delivery, and no present intention shown to deliver. Tbe evidence shows an intention not to deliver till an event which has not yet happened, i. e., Clark’s own death.
Tbe facts, briefly stated, are that Clark exchanged lands with tbe defendant Franklin and bis wife. Clark executed bis deed to Franklin and in exchange Franklin was to convey another tract to him. But at Clark’s request, Franklin inserted in tbe deed tbe name of Raymond Buchanan, tbe illegitimate son pf Clark. There was no delivery to Buchanan, no consideration paid by him, and no agreement by Clark to bold for him. Buchanan was a stranger to tbe transaction, and there was nothing to make Clark a trustee for'him. Clark, in effect, remained tbe true owner of tbe land, and retained tbe same control over it and over tbe deed as be bad bad over tbe land which be conveyed to Franklin in exchange. He bad an intention, be testifies, to deliver tbe deed to Buchanan at bis own death; but it was an intention founded on no consideration and based upon no agreement with Franklin or Buchanan, and such intention remained unexecuted. Buchanan never saw tbe deed, so far as tbe evidence shows; bad no agreement about it, and *69was not even aware of its existence. He was at tbe time in a distant State, and died before becoming 21 years of age and without having returned to North Carolina.
• On Eaymond’s death, Clark changed his mind, handed the deed back to Franklin and wife, and obtained a new deed for himself. At Franklin’s request, he gave him an agreement to pay any damages which might accrue to him by reason of giving Clark a second deed to the land which he had “intendkd to give* to Eaymond Buchanan.” This is so expressed in the contract, and shows that he had not given the land to Eaymond. His statement to Franklin when he received the deed, that he intended to have the deed delivered to Buchanan at his own death, shows that he was to retain control over it. The case, therefore, comes squarely under the decision in Weaver v. Weaver, 159 N. C., 18.
After Eaymond’s death, upon the demand of the plaintiff’s lawyer, Franklin surrendered the deed, which, Clark had returned to him, to the plaintiff, who had it recorded, but sub-, sequent to the registration of the, deed to Clark. The deed never having been delivered to Buchanan, this forcible obtaining it after its return to Franklin and its registration thereafter could have no effect. The privy examination of Franklin’s wife and acknowledgment of her husband to the first deed could have no validity, in view of the fact that there had been no delivery to Buchanan. The deed was based upon no consideration moving from Buchanan. It remained in the control and possession of Clark, who did not agree to hold it for Buchanan, but merely expressed an intention to give it to him at his own death. Buchanan could not have maintained an action against Clark to convert him into a trustee nor to compel him to deliver the deed.
Clark retained control over the deed and of the land. He has parted with neither the title nor the possession of the land, and retained the right to cancel the deed at will. He could have maintained, upon tender of the return of the deed to Franklin and wife, an action to compel Franklin and wife to execute their contract and to deliver to him a deed for the land *70in exchange for tbe land be bad conveyed to them. He could not, “unbeknownst” to both himself and Buchanan, pass the title to Buchanan and deprive himself of his own property, when he has received no consideration therefor and had not expressed even an intention to do so, except an intention, without any consideration from Buchanan, to deliver the deed to him at his own death% He has done nothing to deprive himself of his own property, merely because he had an unexecuted intention, on a future event which has not occurred, to pass the title to Buchanan, who died before the event occurred.
The whole matter remained in fieri, and Clark imssessed the right to cancel his intended gift of the property to Buchanan and to take the title to himself, which he has done. Until delivery to Buchanan, the paper-writing, though signed and acknowledged by Franklin and wife, was not a deed, and had no more effect than if it had been a blank piece of paper. It is different when such paper is delivered to the grantee named therein..
In obedience to the writ of certiorari from this Court, the judge made the following additional finding of fact: “That the defendant W. C. Clark purchased and paid for the land on his ■own initiative, without the knowledge of Raymond Buchanan, intending at the time to deliver the deed to the said Raymond Buchanan on his return to the State, so that the said Raymond Buchanan, who was illegitimate, should share with his other children in his éstate; and the said Raymond having died be-, fore" his return to the State, the said ~W. C. Clark surrendered the deed to the grantors and procured the other deed to himself.” It is thus found as a fact by the court, by consent of the parties, that the deed was never delivered to Buchanan; that Clark received it, not as his agent, but as a purchaser for value, and held it subject to his own control of it, and with the intention to deliver it to Buchanan on a contingency which did not happen, and that he was not under any compulsion to have delivered it at all.
Besides, under Revisal, 980, Clark being a purchaser for a valuable consideration, and his deed registered first, the con*71veyance to Buchanan, even if it bad been delivered and even if it bad been registered by authority, was not valid against him. It is true, Clark bad notice of the prior deed. But it has been held in cases too numerous to be cited that “no- notice, however full and formal, can supply notice by registration, and a purchaser for value under a prior registered deed is not affected by notice of an unregistered deed, even if the holders thereunder are in possession of the property.” In this case Clark remained in possession, and Buchanan had possession neither of the deed nor of the land. Tremaine v. Williams, 144 N. C., 114; Collins v. Davis, 132 N. C., 106; Blalock v. Strain, 122 N. C., 283; Patterson v. Mills, 121 N. C., 267, and cases cited; Hinton v. Leigh, 102 N. C., 28; Blevins v. Barker, 75 N. C., 436.