3 Day 90 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut | 1808
on referring to his minutes, then stated— That on, the trial of the cause, the defendant having given in evidence two certain deeds from the plaintiff and his brother Timothy Webster, conveying all the lands in question to Miller Fish, the defendant’s counsel objected to the admission of evidence to prove the incom-peiency of the plaintiff to convey lands; because the deed, having been acknowledged before a public officer, authorized to take such acknowledgment, there could be no averment against such solemn act; and becaüse no man can be permitted to allege his own incapacity to avoid a conveyance. The court overruled the objection, and admitted the evidence.]
This statement of the case seems not very obviously to present a specific question. Are we tp argue the point, that proof of the plaintiff’s incompetency to convey should not have been admitted ? If the evidence offered were, generally, that he was incompetent, without showing the reason of the incompetency, whether infancy, idiocy, lunacy or imbecility, the point would scarcely admit of argument. If the point is, that no man can allege his own incapacity, we have no case; because infancy, clearly, may be alleged.
I understand the question, upon the státement, to be, whether a man may be allowed to stultify himself.] ,
That a man cannot stultify himself, to avoid his own grant, is a well established principle of the English law. It is so said by Littleton, sect. 405.; and has been so
In addition to the reasons alleged against the general doctrine, it is to be observed, as to this particular case, which is an action of ejectment in the usual form, that from the declaration the defendant has no notice of the
. M. Perkins and Brace, contra. The doctrine, that a man can in no case be admitted to stultify himself, although now received to be Jaw ⅛ England, was not anciently so considered ; nor has it been, in modern times, universally approved of, or acquiesced in; for to some, as is said by Lord Coke, the civil law, by which all acts done by idiots or persons non compotes mentis, without their tutor, .are utterly void, seems more reasonable than the common law. 4 Rep. 126. There is, in fact, much absurdity in permitting persons under the age of twenty-one years, to avoid their own deeds, because they are supposed wanting in discretion to contract, and yet denying this privilege to idiots and lunatics, who must be, at least, equally destitute of discretion. The eonimon law, indeed, tacitly admits this absurdity; for while it leaves utterly without remedy the party from whom Providence has withheld the means of self protection, and who, therefore, more needs the protection of the law, it still makes the grant of a person non compos voidable by the king, and by the representatives of the grantor. What good reason, if any, there may have been for the distinctions which arc found
By the Court unanimously. It is not a question, whether a deed, executed by a person non compos mentis, is voidable, for want of capacity in the grantor to convey. All admit that it is; and that such a deed may be
New trial not to be granted.
“ Fools and madmen are tacitly excepted out of al! la-era whatsoever.” 15 Vim.Ur, 137.
SeCo.Litt. 247 4 Rep. 125
Lloyd v. Gregory, Cro. Car. 502,