The Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina having decided
that the act of the legislature of that state of 1744 relative to
the commencement within two years of actions of ejectment after
nonsuit, discontinuance, &c., is a part of the Limitation Act
of 1812, and that a suit commenced within the time prescribed
arrests the limitation, and this being the decision of the highest
judicial tribunal on the construction of a state law relating to
titles and real property, must be regarded by this Court as the
rule to bind its judgment.
That court having decided on the construction of a will,
according to its view of the rules of the common law in that state,
as a rule of property, this decision comes within the principle
adopted by this Court in
Jackson v.
Chew, 12 Wheat. 153,
25 U. S. 167,
that such decisions are entitled to the same respect as those which
are given on the construction of local statutes.
When an estate was devised to A. and B. in trust for C. and her
heirs, the estate, by the settled rules of the courts of law and
equity in South Carolina, as applied to the statute of uses of 27
Henry VIII, ch. 10, in force in that state, passed at once to the
object of the trust, as soon as the will took effect, by the death
of the testator. The interposition of the names of A. and B. had no
other legal operation than to make them the conduits through whom
the estate was to pass, and they could not sustain an ejectment for
the land. C., the grandchild of the testator, is a purchaser under
the will, deriving all her rights from the will of the testator and
obtaining no title from A. and B., and A. and B. were as much
strangers to the estate as if their names were not to be found in
the will.
The case contemplated in the law of 1744, by which a plaintiff
or any other person claiming under one who had brought an ejectment
for land, which suit had failed by verdict and judgment against him
or by nonsuit or discontinuance, &c., is empowered to commence
his action for the recovery of the said lands
de novo, is
clearly a case where the right of the plaintiff in the first suit
passes to the plaintiff in the second, where it must depend upon
some interest or right of action which has become vested in him by
purchase or descent from the person claiming the land in the former
suit.
It would be quite a new principle in the law of ejectment and
limitations that the intention to assert the right was equivalent
to its being actually done. It is settled law that an entry on land
by one having the right has the same effect in arresting the
progress of the limitation as a suit, but it cannot be sustained as
a legal proposition that an entry by one having no right is of any
avail.
Where the court ordered the costs to be paid of a former
ejectment brought by the plaintiffs in the names of other persons,
but for their use, before the plaintiff could prosecute a second
suit in his own name for the same land, this was not a judicial
decision that the right of the plaintiffs in the first suit was the
same with that of the plaintiffs in the second suit. It was
perfectly consistent with the justice of the case that when the
plaintiffs used the same defendant in their own name for the same
land, that they should reimburse him for the past costs to which
they had subjected him before they should be permitted to proceed
further. Rules of this kind are granted by the court to meet the
justice and exigencies of cases as they occur, not depending solely
on the interest
Page 30 U. S. 152
which those who are subjected to such rules may have in the
subject matter of suits which they bring and prosecute in the names
of others, but on a variety of circumstances which in the exercise
of a sound discretion may furnish a proper ground for their
interference.
This was an action of trespass instituted in the circuit court
to try titles according to the forms prescribed by the local law of
South Carolina, by which this action is substituted for an
ejectment.
The plaintiffs proved a good title to a tract of land in
Abbeville District, South Carolina, under the will of Henry
Laurens, who devised the land in question to Dr. and Mrs. Ramsay
and their heirs, in trust for the use and behoof of Frances Eleanor
Laurens (now the wife of Francis Henderson) during her life,
&c. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiffs for a part of
the said land, with damages. But the defendant having set up a
claim under the statute of limitations, the plaintiffs, in reply,
showed from the records of the state court that this action was
commenced 29 May, 1823, and on 21 November, 1823, a rule was made
and entered by the said court against the plaintiffs in these
words:
"Francis Henderson and Wife v. John Carey, and the Same v. Other
Defendants, to the number of forty, including Ira Griffin. On
reading the affidavit of Henry Gray it is ordered that the
plaintiffs show cause on Monday morning why all proceedings in
these cases should not be stayed until the costs of the actions
prosecuted in the names of the heirs of David Ramsay by the same
plaintiffs in the state court against the same defendant be
paid."
On the return of this rule, counsel were heard for and against
it, and on 20 April, 1824, the court ordered that upon a taxed bill
of costs in the state court being made out, the same be forthwith
paid by the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs in the circuit court, by their counsel, showed on
the trial that the suit in the state court, prosecuted in the name
of the heirs of David Ramsay against the defendant, was regularly
discontinued in that court on 23 October, 1822, and they were
compelled to pay the costs of that suit before they could proceed
with the present. And the plaintiffs' counsel contended that the
title was not barred by the
Page 30 U. S. 153
act of limitations when the suit in the name of the heirs of
Ramsay was commenced, and the act did not run against the
plaintiffs since that time, inasmuch as the present suit ought to
be joined and connected with the said former suit in the state
court. But the court, admitting that the plaintiffs' title was not
barred at the commencement of the first suit, instructed the jury
that the present suit could not be connected with the former, and
the jury found a verdict accordingly. To which instruction and
finding the plaintiffs' counsel excepted and prosecuted this writ
of error.
The counsel for the plaintiffs in error claimed to reverse the
judgment in the circuit court because the suit in the state court
in the name of the heirs of Ramsay, trustees for the plaintiffs,
ought to have been connected with the present action, being for the
same land, under the same title, and by the showing of the same
defendant upon the records of the court, prosecuted by the same
plaintiffs in the name of their trustees.
Page 30 U. S. 154
MR. JUSTICE BALDWIN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The action in the court below was brought to try title to a
tract of land in Abbeville District claimed by the plaintiffs under
the will of Henry Laurens and by the defendant in virtue of a
possession of five years which, by the limitation law of South
Carolina, gives a good title.
On the trial of the cause, it appeared that Henry Laurens, being
seized in fee of the premises in controversy, devised the same to
his daughter, Mrs. Ramsay and to Dr. Ramsay, "to hold the same to
them and their heirs in trust for the use and behoof of his
grand-daughter, Frances Eleanor Laurens, wife of the plaintiff,
during her life, &c."
On 23 October, 1822, the heirs of David Ramsay, claiming by the
will aforesaid, brought their action against the defendant in the
state court of South Carolina to recover the land claimed by him,
which was part of a larger tract of land devised to Mrs. Henderson
by the will of Mr. Laurens. The supreme court, on argument, decided
that the legal estate was in those for whose use it was devised,
and that the action could not be sustained in the name of the heirs
of Ramsay.
Ramsay v. Marsh, 2 McCord 252.
Page 30 U. S. 155
Whereupon the suit was discontinued on 23 October, 1822. At the
commencement of that suit, five years had not expired from the time
of the defendant's entry on the land, but they had expired when the
present action was brought on 29 May, 1823, so that the only
question arising in this action is whether the two suits can be so
connected that the present can relate back to the former one and
thus bring it by legal intendment within the five years. The
circuit court being of opinion that the two suits could not be
connected, a verdict and judgment passed for the defendant. And
this is the only error assigned.
The plaintiffs in error rest their case on the following clause
of an act of assembly of South Carolina passed in 1744. 2 Brevard's
Digest 24.
"And in case verdict and judgment shall pass against the
plaintiff in such action, or that he suffers a nonsuit or
discontinuance, or any otherwise lets fall the same, such verdict
or judgment, nonsuit, or discontinuance or other letting fall the
action or suit aforesaid shall not be conclusive and definitive on
the part of such plaintiff, but at any time within two years the
said plaintiff or any other person or persons claiming by, from,
and under him shall have right and is hereby empowered to commence
his action for the recovery of the said lands and tenements
de
novo and prosecute the same in the manner and with the
expedition hereinbefore directed."
The supreme court of that state have decided that this law is
considered as a part of the limitation act of 1712, and that a suit
commenced within the time prescribed arrests the limitation,
Edson v. Davis, 1 McCord 555, 556, and this being a
decision of their highest judicial tribunal on the construction of
a state law relating to titles and real property, it must be
adopted by us as the rule to guide our judgment, and this brings
the merits of this case to this single question -- whether the
plaintiffs claim by, from, or under David Ramsay's heirs.
The opinion of the court in the case of
Kennedy v.
Marsh was an able and deliberate one; it was a judicial
construction of the will of Mr. Laurens according to their view of
the rules of the common law in that state as a rule of property,
and comes within the principle adopted by this Court in
Jackson v.
Chew, 12 Wheat. 153,
25 U. S. 167,
that such decisions are
Page 30 U. S. 156
entitled to the same respect as those which are given on the
construction of local statutes. By so considering it and adopting
it as a rule by which to decide this case, it follows conclusively
that if there was no such estate in the heirs of Dr. Ramsay as
would authorize them to sustain an ejectment under this will in
their own names, the trust in the will was one clearly executed in
Mrs. Henderson. By the settled rules of courts both of law and
equity as applied to the statute of uses of 27 Henry VIII, ch. 10,
in force in South Carolina, there was, according to the principle
of the decision of the state court, nothing executory in the trust.
Mr. or Mrs. Ramsay were to do no act before both the legal and
beneficial interest vested in the devisee in trust. The estate
never vested in them for a moment, but passed directly to the
objects of the trust as soon as the will took effect by the death
of the testator. The interposition of the names of Mr. and Mrs.
Ramsey had no other legal operation than to make them the conduits
through whom the estate was to pass. The application of the statute
of Henry VIII to a will gives it the effect of a deed of bargain
and sale to uses; they are only modes of passing title. Having no
legal operation to vest the legal estate in the names used as the
conduits or instruments of conveyance, the effect of either would
be the same if the grant or devise were made directly to the
purposes and uses declared, transferring both the title and
possession.
"The statute conveys the possession to the use and transfers the
use into possession, thereby making the
cestui qui use
complete owner of the lands and tenements as well at law as in
equity. The possession thus transferred is not a mere seizin or
possession in law, but an actual seizin and possession in fact; not
a mere title to enter upon the land, but an actual estate."
2 McCord 254.
This decided opinion of the highest court of South Carolina
renders it unnecessary for this Court to express its own opinion on
this will. Thus construed, neither Mr. or Mrs. Ramsay ever had, and
their heirs never could have, any right or estate in the premises
so devised by Mr. Laurens, in law or equity; no right of entry,
possession, or ultimate enjoyment. They could not take the rents
and profits, as the entire estate of the devisor vested in the
devisee; they could therefore sustain no ejectment, which must be
founded on a right of
Page 30 U. S. 157
possession. Mrs. Henderson is a purchaser directly under the
will of her grandfather, deriving all her rights from him. There
being not a spark of right in the Ramsays, she could by no
possibility claim by, from, or under them. There was no privity of
estate between them. The Ramsays formed no link in the chain of
title from the person last seized to the plaintiff. They were as
much strangers to the estate in law as if their names were not to
be found in the will, and there could be in no principle of law any
connection between the present and the former suit. The case
contemplated in the law of 1744 is clearly one where the right of
the plaintiff in the first suit passes to the plaintiff in the
second, where it must depend upon some interest or right of action,
which has become vested in him by purchase or descent from the
person claiming the land in the former suit.
These are the views which inevitably result from the local laws,
expounded by the highest court in the state, in accordance with
which the right of Mrs. Henderson was as perfect on the death of
Mr. Laurens as it could be afterwards. She might have supported her
ejectment against Griffin at the time when the heirs of Ramsay
brought theirs, and this is not the case provided for by the law;
which in our opinion applies only to the case of a suit brought to
enforce a right derived from the first plaintiff. To give the law
any other interpretation would be to establish in South Carolina
the principle that an action brought by a person having no right,
title, or interest in land in the actual possession of a person
claiming it for himself would arrest the act of limitation and
prevent its running on the right of a stranger to the suit. It
would be doing violence to the law to give it this meaning.
The plaintiffs' counsel seem to consider this as a case where
the first ejectment was brought by a trustee, and the second by a
cestui qui trust. But this is not such an one. If the
construction given to the will is to be considered as the law of
the case, the will of Mr. Laurens did not sever his interest in the
estate devised to his grand-daughter; the legal was not separated
from the quitable estate; but the whole passed unbroken by the
will. So that the relation of trustee and
cestui qui trust
never subsisted. The utmost extent of the argument drawn from this
alleged analogy in favor of the
Page 30 U. S. 158
plaintiff would be that the heirs of Ramsay brought the first
suit in assertion of the title of Mr. Laurens, but for the want of
privity, they could not bring it to bear on the defendant in their
names. It would be quite a new principle in the law of ejectment
and limitation that the intention to assert the right was
equivalent to its being actually done.
It is settled law that an entry on the land by one having the
right has the same effect in arresting the progress of the
limitation as a suit, but it cannot be sustained as a legal
proposition that an entry by one having no right is of any avail.
If the use or trust was executory; if the legal title had remained
in the Ramsays as trustees until they had done some act to vest it
in the devisee as the
cestui qui trust, there would be
great force in the reasoning of the plaintiffs' counsel. But here
there is no estate devised to Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay in trust. The
statute, according to the local law of South Carolina, operates to
make the devise directly to Mrs. Henderson.
The only remaining point made by the plaintiff is that which
arises from the following rule made by the circuit court in this
cause on 21 November, 1823.
"On reading the affidavit of Henry Gray, it is ordered that the
plaintiffs show cause on Monday morning why all proceedings in
these cases should not be stayed until the costs of the action
prosecuted in the names of the heirs of David Ramsay by the same
plaintiffs in the state court against the same defendants be
paid."
In pursuance of which rule, the plaintiffs paid the costs in the
action referred to.
Assuming the fact stated in the rule to be true, that the
plaintiffs brought these suits in the name of David Ramsay's heirs,
it shows no more than that it was a case which by the rules and
practice of all courts authorized the order made by the circuit
court. Costs had accrued to the defendant by a suit brought and
prosecuted by the plaintiffs in this suit in the name of those who
had no right to the land. It was perfectly consistent with the
justice of the case that when these plaintiffs sued the same
defendant in their own name for the same land, they should
reimburse him for the past costs to which they had subjected him
before they should be permitted to proceed further. Rules of this
kind are granted by courts to meet the justice and exigencies of
cases as they occur, not depending
Page 30 U. S. 159
solely on the interest which those who are subjected to such
rules may have in the subject matter of suits which they bring and
prosecute in the names of others, but on a variety of circumstances
which in the exercise of a sound discretion may furnish a proper
ground for their interference. A rule on A. to pay the costs of a
suit in the name of B. is no judicial decision that he had any
interest in the subject or that it was identical with one
afterwards brought by A. in his own name for the same property. It
is the exercise of a summary power to compel what under the
circumstances of the particular case the court consider to be
justice to a party in defending himself against an unfounded claim.
The case before the circuit court was a proper one for the exercise
of their discretionary powers, but their rule can have no possible
bearing on the question in issue between the parties in the
action.
It is therefore the opinion of the Court that there is no error
in the record.
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed with
costs.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of
South Carolina and was argued by counsel, on consideration whereof
it is the opinion of this Court that there is no error in the
judgment of the said circuit court, whereupon it is considered,
ordered, and adjudged that the judgment of the said circuit court
in this cause be and the same is hereby affirmed with costs.
