Stephens et al. versus Rinehart et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania1873-01-06No. No. 220

72 Pa. 434

Summary · law.co

Holding. The deed took effect by relation from the date of its first delivery, and the trial court properly excluded evidence of the grantor's subsequent declarations and statements by third parties. The judgment is affirmed.

The court addressed whether a deed delivered after the grantor's death takes effect from the date of the original delivery or only when actually delivered. Under established law, when a deed is not conditioned upon performance by the grantee but merely awaits a future event, it operates as the grantor's present deed and takes effect by relation to the first delivery upon the subsequent delivery, even if that occurs after the grantor's death. In this case, the grantor Andrew Lantz Sr. delivered a deed to a third party with instructions to deliver it to the grantee after his death, but the grantor never formally called for it back. The court determined the deed became effective from its original date of delivery.

The trial judge properly excluded evidence of the grantor's statements after the initial delivery, since such statements could only be relevant to show the grantor had countermanded the delivery before his death. The court also found that declarations by other parties were inadmissible without prior evidence of fraud or conspiracy, which had not been established. The appellate court affirmed the trial judge's evidentiary rulings and its application of established deed law to the facts presented.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Whether a deed delivered to a third party with conditional instructions operates as an escrow or as a presently effective deed
Whether a deed takes effect by relation to the first delivery when the second delivery occurs after the grantor's death
Admissibility of the grantor's declarations after the initial delivery of the deed

Procedural posture

The appellate court reviewed the trial judge's evidentiary rulings and substantive application of deed law after the case had previously been before the court.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered, by

Sharswood, J.

— That the delivery of the deed in controversy after the death of the grantor, took effect by relation to the first delivery, seems a point very well settled by the decided cases: Morris v. Stephens, 4 P. F. Smith 20. In Foster v. Mansfield, 3 Metcalf 414, C. J. Shaw said: “ Where the future delivery is to depend upon the payment of money or the performance of some other condition, it will be deemed an escrow. Where it is merely to await the lapse of time or the happening of some contingency, and not the performance of any condition, it will be deemed the grantor’s deed presently. Still it will not take effect as a deed, until the second delivery; but when thus delivered it will take effect by relation from the first delivery.” He adds: “As the estate did not effectually pass till the second delivery, if that second delivery had been prevented, it would probably have been held that it was wholly inoperative.” In Belden v. Carter, 4 Day 66, A. having signed, sealed and acknowledged a deed conveying a tract of land to B., took up the deed in the absence of B., and said to C.: “ Take this deed, and keep it; if I never call for it, deliver it to B. after my death: if I call for it, deliver it up to me.” C. took the deed. A. died soon afterwards, having never called for it, and then C. delivered it over to B.: it was held that this was the deed of A. presently; that C. held it as trustee for B.: that the title became consummate in B. by the death of A., and that the deed took effect by relation from the time of the first delivery. To the same effect is Stewart v. Stewart, 5 Conn. 317, and the authorities which are cited in these cases fully sustain the rule laid down. If the object of Andrew Lantz, Sr., in making the deed here in question, was to prevent his intended second wife from obtaining by the marriage any dower in the land, it was necessary in order to secure that result, that the deed should take effect presently, so that if the first delivery had been expressly as an escrow, it would in order to effectuate the intention have been held to relate.

In Perkins, sect. 9, a case in the Year Books is referred to where a single woman made a deed, which she delivered to a third person as an escrow, to be delivered in case the grantor returned from Borne, and then the woman married, and afterwards the deed was delivered: it was decided that the estate passed at the time of the first delivery and the marital right of the husband never attached. So Chancellor Kent decided in Frost v. Beekman, 1 Johns. Ch. 288, that a deed delivered as an escrow is operative only from the time of the performance of the condition, and the actual delivery to the grantor, except in cases where a relation back to the first delivery is necessary to give effect to the deed or to the intermediate conveyances of the grantee. It follows that the delivery of the deed of Andrew Lantz, Sr., is to be considered as operative from its date, and the ruling of the learned judge which excluded evidence of the declarations of Andrew Lantz, Sr., except so far as they went to prove that before his death he had countermanded the delivery of the deed, was entirely correct. Nor can it be pretended that the declarations of Henry Lantz, Andrew Lantz, Jr., or J. L. McConnell, were competent without some previous evidence of a fraud perpetrated by them on Andrew Lantz, Sr., or of a conspiracy by them to perpetrate such a fraud, and of this there was none.

The answers of the learned judge below to the several points which are complained of in the remaining assignments of error, conform to the opinion and decision of this court when this case was here before: Huss v. Morris, 13 P. F. Smith 367.

Judgment affirmed.