Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/307

* CONDITION. 259 CONDITIONAL LIMITATION. event itself. If the condition is sot fortli in words it is called an express condition: if it is infer- able from tlic circumstances of tlic particular case it is called an impliiU condition. In En<?- lish law conditions arc also classilicd as condi- tions -precedent and conditions siibsciiiient. An example of the former is the grant of an estate to A niion condition that he marry R: or the contract to ciiarter a sliip upon c(mdilion that it is in the port of Ainstonhim. Here the event named must hajipon bofori! tlic estate vests in A, or the contract obligation on the part of the hirer of the ship arises. An example of a condi- tion subsequent is the grant of an estate to A upon condition that he continues to reside in a particular place: or the purchase of a piano upon condition that it shall 'stand up to correct pitch' for a year. Here the estate in A, or the oljligation of the purchaser to keep and pay for the ])iano is annulled upon the non-performance of the condition. Impossible, illegal, or repug- nant conditions are void. Accordingly, says Blackstonc. "if they be conditions subsequent, the estate shall become absolute in the tenant, for he hath by the grant the estate vested in him, which shall not be defeated by a void condition. But if the condition be precedent, he shall take nothing by the grant, for he hath no estate until the condition is performed." A provision in a contract which is intended to operate as a condition in favor of one party may contain a liinding promise of the other party. For example. A agrees to sell and deliver to B at a named time, place, and price a certain quan- tity of merchantable corn : and A tenders unmer- chantable corn at the agreed time, place, and price. B has the right not only to reject the corn, because the condition precedent to deliver iiierchantalile corn has not been performed by A, but also to recover from A damages for breach of contract to deliver the agreed corn. Such a provision in a contract may be called a promis- sory condition. Of this class are the mutual promises of the seller to deliver the goods and of the buyer to pay for them — engagements which are sometimes called 'concurrent conditions.' Promissory conditions have been confused with warranties (see Warranty) bv maiiv judges and writers, but the English Sale of Good's Act of 1S93 makes a sharp distinction between the terms, and lias done much to clear up the confusion in this branch of the law. See Sale. Another and distinct class of provisions in eon- tracts may be styled casual or coniinijent condi- tions, because they are intended to jirevent any obligation attaching to either party until their performance, .^n example of this class is af- forded by an agreement for the sale of described goods to arrive by a specified sliip. Here, if the ship does not arrive, or, if arriving, it has not the described goods on board, neither party is bound. The word cotiditional frequently appears in standard legal phrases, sor.ie of the more impor- tant of which are the following: Conditional acceptance {of a bill of exchange) is an accept- ance in which payment by the acceptor is de- pendent upon the fulfillment of a comlition there- in named. Conditional advance note, that is. a note given by the master of a ship to a scauian, payable after the ship sails upon condition that the seaman goes with the ship. Conditional al- lotment, conditional application, that is, the allotment of shares in a Conipau)', or the applica- tion for shares, made upon a .--iiecilied condition. In the former case the applicant is not bound to lake the shares unless he has assented to the con- dition, nor in the latter case unless the condition is performed. Consult: Blackstonc, Commen- taries on the Lairs of England; Benjamin, Treatise on the Laic of Sale of Personal I'ropcrtij (7th ed., Boston, 189!)) : Burdick. Law of ,Sa!e of Personal I'ropert;/ (2d ed., Boston, 1901) : consult also the Ci/clopwdia of the Laus of England, vol iii. (London, 1897). CONDITIONAL FEE. At comm<m law, an estate granted to a man and the heirs of his body. This liniilation to a particular line of heirs, to the e.xclusion of colhitcral lines, was interpreted »y the courts merely as a condition diverting the estate in the e-ent that no issue was born answering the description of the grant, and the fee thus came to be known as a condi- tional fee. The condition being performed by the birth of issue, such estates became absolute and might then be alienated to strangers and the expectations of the issue defeated. A.s con- ditional fees were a device of the great landown- ers to preserve their estates intact for their lineal descendants, they procured the enactment of a statute by Parliament forbidding such alienation and preserving the interests of the issue as well as of persons to whom the property was to go on failure of issue. This was the famous statute of Westminster II. (128.5), known as the statute Dc Bonis Conditionalilnis ('concerning conditional gifts'), which had the effect of converting such estates into fees tail and of preventing the evils at which it was aimed until, by the ingenuity of the lawyers and judges, other means were devised for barring entails and alienating such estates. See Condition : Commox Eecoverv; Fee Tail; Fee Simple: Fine. Con- sult the authorities referred to under Fee Sim- ple and Fee Tail. CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. The doctrine advanced by certain theologians that the immortality of the soul is conditional only upon faith in Christ, and that immortality is not inherent in the race. See Anniiiilationism. CONDITIONAL LIMITATION. A fee simple estate limited or qualilied (a) so as to come to an end on the happening of a collateral event, or (b) so as to shift from one owner to another on such an event. The exjiression condi- tional limitation is used in both these senses by different law-writers of great authority, and it is therefore impossible to affix to it a precise defini- tion. The first use of the phrase identifies it with the limited or qualified fee simple, as a gift of land to A and his heirs .so long as they shall continue to live on the premises, or so hmg as Saint Paul's Church shall stand, or until the happening of any other event. Under the early common law the donor of such an estate had an interest left — notwithstanding the estate conveyed was a fee simple — known as a 'possibility of re- verter.' and. upon the happening of the event specified in the deed, the property would revert or return to the donor or his heirs. This contin- gent interest remaining in the donor of a qualified fee has been referred to the feudal relation of lord and tenant, which might subsist between the' grantor and gi'antee of a fee, and it has been supposed that the statute Quia Emptores (1290),