Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/190

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT either actually, or by making continual claim, entered; and no conveyance operating under the Statute of Uses could be effective unless the covenanter or bargainer had possession, or the foeffee to uses got seisin. "This statute ended all question as to the right of a disseisee to convey. Whatever may have been true before the statute, no one after it could convey during another's adverse possession so as to affect that other. The Pretended Title Act is often spoken -of as an affirmance of the common law, but it certainly went farther than the earlier law. By the earlier law, a disseisor did not have to be in possession a year before making a conveyance, but after this statute, he had to do so. By the earlier law, a disseisee did not have to wait a year after he re-entered before conveying, yet by a literal construction of this statute he was required to do just that, though a more liberal construction was advocated. "Under the Pretended Title Act, therefore, a conveyance was void if either the grantor was out of possession at the time, or the grantor> though in possession at the time, had not been in possession himself or by his ancestor, grantor, etc., for one year prior to the con veyance. "The Pretended Title Act, if not wholly repealed, has been robbed in England of most of its efficacy. In 1845, *ne Statute 8 and 9 Viet., c. 106, sec. 6, made rights of entry other than those for condition broken alienable by deed; and while the Statute 32 Hen. VIII may still forbid the sale of wholly fictitious titles, and render void the deed of one knowingly taking a wholly fictitious title, the Statute 8 and 9 Viet, makes valid every conveyance by a rightful owner who still has a right of entry, even if his lands are at the time of the convey ance in the adverse possession of another. In the United States, the distinction between disseisin and the other forms of adverse posses sion, known to the old law, has become obso lete. "On the question of the right of the real owner of land to convey it while another is in its adverse possession, the states are divided. "In closing, some explanation should be offered of the fact that in a number of our states the old doctrine in some form still survives. Indeed, it receives vigorous support

167

in one of our newest states. Perhaps the best explanation is that given for the Tennessee statutes. Of them it has been said: ' It was no fear of nobles or great men or their influence with courts and juries that produced these Tennessee statutes. . . but it was the hos tility of public sentiment to the " land sharks" who were speculating in litigation over defec tive titles, and particularly to lawyers lending themselves to this speculation for profit, which provoked statutes seeking to enlarge the English acts just because they did not reach the evil sought to be suppressed.1 Whatever the reason, the old doctrine retains, and for some time will retain in several states, consid erable vitality." PROPERTY (see History). PUBLIC POLICY. " The Reign of Law," by Joseph W. Folk, an address before the Kentucky State Bar Association, published in our July number is printed in the January American Lawyer (V. xiv, p. 12). TORTS. " How Far Insanity Avails as an Answer in Actions of Tort," by Silas Alward, Canadian Law Times (V. xxvi, p. i). TORTS (Combinations). In the December Commonwealth Law Review (V. iii, p. 59), an article entitled " A Defect in our Commercial Law and Federal Responsibilities," by J. H. Ferguson, urges legislation to restrict trade combinations. TRADEMARKS. " The Union Label," by G. T. Meillon, Commonwealth Law Review (V. iii, p. 70). WILLS (Equitable Conversion). In the February Harvard Law Review (V. xix, p.233), Professor C. C. Langdell publishes another of his series of articles on " Equitable Conver sion." He deals with the statement often made by judges that the equitable conversion of money into land has the effect of vesting the equitable ownership of the land in him in whose favor the conversion is made, and similarly with respect to the equitable conver sion of land into money. From the fact that when a contract is entered into for the purchase and sale of land, and the purchaser dies pending the contract, it has always been held that the heir or devisee is entitled to enforce the contract against the seller for his own benefit, it has been supposed to follow that the land passes in equity from the seller to the