62 Vt. 467 | Vt. | 1890
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The right of the plaintiff to recover depends upon-whether the act of the Legislature, approved Nov. 25,1884, purporting to give the use of the lands sequestered or granted to-the use of county grammar schools in the town of Riehford, among which is the land sued for, is an act which the Legislature, under the circumstances, could lawfully pass. On Nov. 4, 1799, the Legislature passed an act incorporating the plaintiff,, with the usual powers and rights of a corporation, for the purpose of maintaining a grammar school in St. Albans, in the county of Franklin, upon condition that the inhabitants- of St. Albans should, within two years, erect a house for the grammar
Such grants have always been held, when made without money •consideration and without conditions, limitations or reservations for the action of future Legislatures, irrepealable. The foundation of all property rights in real estate depends upon the irrepealability of such grants. This was an executed grant. Nothing further remained to be done by the Legislature to pass these lands, sequestered and dedicated to the use named in the •charter of the several towns, to the plaintiff. Nothing remained to be done by the plaintiff except to accept the lands, which it at •once did. In this respect this case is distinguishable from Trustees of Bishop's Fund v. Rider, 13 Conn. 87. In that case the fund sought to be reached remained in the possession and control of the State, and when the act relied upon by the plaintiff was passed, it had not been received by the State, and many things were to be done by the officers of the State to bring it Into the possession of the State. It was nqt, so far as related to the fund claimed, an executed gift or grant, but was wholly executory and rested in the promise of- the State contained in the original act to make the gift or grant when the money should be received from the United States. While thus resting in the .promise of the State, being wholly without consideration, the promise was unenforceable, and a subsequent Legislature could legally withdraw it. In the case at bar, if without consideration, by the act of 1815, the State did all it could do and all that was necessary to pass these lands to the plaintiff. The plaintiff, by accepting the provisions of the act, made the donation of ■these lands, if a gift, an executed gift or grant. If an executed gift or grant, the defendant contends it was without consideration, and for that reason subject to recall by future Legislatures. We do not understand that the State stands differently from individuals in regard to executed gifts or grants. As already said, nil the grants of lands in townships to the original proprietors are of this kind. We understand that an executed gift is a grant
In The Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 656, Washington, Justice, uses this language: “ What is a contract ? It may be defined to be a transaction between two or more persons in which each party comes under an obligal ion to the other, and each reciprocally' acquires a right to whatever is promised by the other. Powell on Conts. 6. Under this definition, says Powell, it is obvious that any feoffment, gift, grant, agreement, promise, etc., may be included, because in all (here is a mutual consent of the minds of the parties concerned in them, upon an agreement between them, respecting some-property or right, that is the object of the stipulation.” He adds-that the ingredients requisite to form a contract are parties, consent and an obligation to be created or dissolved. These must all concur, because the regular effect of all contracts is, on one side to acquire and on the other to part with some property or rights ; or to abridge or restrain natural liberty by limiting the parties to do or restraining them from doing something which before they' might have done or omitted. If a doubt could exist that a grant is a contract, the point was decided in the case of Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, in which it was laid down that a contract is either executory or executed. By the former a party binds himself to do or not to do a .particular thing; the latter is one in which the object of the contract is performed, and this differs in nothing from a grant; but whether executed or executory-, they both contain obligations binding on the parties, and both are equally within the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, which forbids the State govern
On p. 698 he further says : “ The truth is, the government has no power to revoke a grant, even of its own funds, when given to a private person or a corporation for special uses. It cannot recall its own endowments, granted to any hospital, or college, or city, or town, for the use of such corporations. The only authority remaining to the government is judicial, to ascertain
Speaking for the court in Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch, 50, the same learned judge says: “ If the Legislature possessed the authority to make such a grant and confirmation, it is very clear to our minds that it vested an indefeasible and irrevocable title. We have no knowledge of any authority or principle which could support the doctrine that a legislative grant is revocable in' its own nature, and held only durante bene plácito. Such a doctrine would uproot the foundation of almost all land titles.” This court has said in Grammar School v. Burt, supra, that the State Legislature possessed the authority togrant these lands. The principles, so clearly presented by the highest judicial tribunal, governing the obligations growing out of voluntary grants have never been questioned in the many cases on this subject, subsequently arising in the United States Supreme Court. They were given as unquestioned in that case, when the question was whether the franchises of a charter expressed to have been conferred ex mero motu were within the protection of this clause of the United States Constitution. It is true the learned judges found a consideration for granting the franchises conferred in that case. On the principles so clearly enunciated, we think if the grant of the lands made by the act of 1815 was without consideration, it was an executed gift, a grant whieh could not be recalled by subsequent legislation. It is conceded by the defendants that if the grant of these lands to the plaintiff, by the act of 1815, was on consideration, whether executed or unexecuted, they could not.be taken away by subsequent legislation. We think the grant was on consideration. Before the grant the Legislature was charged with the duty of caring for them and appropriating the income arising therefrom to the purposes to which they had been sequestered and dedicated in the charters of the towns. By the grant, if accepted, the Legislature was relieved of this duty. By accepting the grant, by its terms the plaintiff
This was ample consideration for the grant, if a consideration-be required. The acceptance of the grant was a benefit to the State in that it relieved it of the care of these lands and of the expense of leasing, collecting and appropriating the rents to the purpose to which they had been dedicated, a detriment to the plaintiff, in that these burdens and duties, from which the State was relieved, were to be done by it. Either the burden assumed by the plaintiff or the relief secured to the State was a consideration for the grant. From whatever point we consider it, the act of 1884 falls within the inhibition of the Constitution of the United States, and must be declared inoperative and void. None of the authorities cited by the defendant’s counsel are to the contrary.
The judgment of the County Court is reversed and the cause is referred to the clerk to ascertain the rent due the plaintiff, with interest, agreeably to sec. 1259, R. L., and judgment rendered that unless the defendant pays to the clerk for the plaintiff the rent so found due and costs of suit within thirty days from being notified, the plaintiff shall recover the possession of the premises with intervening profits and costs; and if the defendant shall make such payment, then the case to be discontinued under the statute.
Note. — This case was argued at the January Term, 1889, Franklin County, and was assigned to Boss, J., who then wrote the above opinion which was not concurred in by all the sitting judges. Ic was re-argued at the General Term, 1889, when the opinion was adopted by a majority of the court.