Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/282

262 262 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. "POWERS COUPLED WITH AN INTEREST." TT is a matter of practical importance to fix with precision the ■■■ meaning of the phrase "a power coupled with an interest," because it is in constant use in the afifairs of life, because it con- notes a valuable legal right, and because it has been variously construed by the courts. The incident of a power coupled with an interest which gives it special value is that it may be executed after the death of the person who gives it.^ On account of this quality of such a power, there has been much litigation arising from the efforts of donees of powers to show that their powers are coupled with interests. The leading case on this subject in the United States is the one just cited, in which the opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall. It is the precedent to which Htigants refer with con- fidence to sustain conflicting views, yet there seems to be no ambiguity in its meaning, or any omission in its exposition of the subject. While it declares the indestructibility of a power coupled with an interest by the death of the maker, it industriously ex- pounds and Hmits its meaning. The "power coupled with an interest" intended by Chief Jus- tice Marshall when he used these words in the case cited, seems plainly to have been that power which accompanies estate or title in a thing real or personal, or that right in a chose in action which is metaphorically spoken of as title or estate. It is one of the group of powers constituting ownership. It is in fact title or estate or ownership, and is contrasted with a common law power of disposition over property given by a power of attorney. The following is the language of the Court in that case : — " We hold it to be clear that the interest which can protect a power after the death of a person who creates it, must be an interest in the thing itself. In other words, the power must be engrafted on an estate in the thing. . . . The words themselves would seem to import this meaning. 'A power coupled with an interest' is a power which accom- panies or is connected with an interest. The power and the interest 1 Hunt V. Rousmanier's Administrators, 8 Wheaton, 174.