Stoller v. Doyle
100 N.E. 959, 257 Ill. 369 (1913)
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Rule of Law:
A future interest created in a statutory deed that is limited to take effect by cutting short a prior fee simple estate is an indestructible shifting use (executory interest), not a destructible contingent remainder.
Facts:
- On April 13, 1882, Lawrence Doyle conveyed land via warranty deed to his son, Frank Doyle.
- The 1882 deed stipulated that Frank Doyle could not reconvey or mortgage the land.
- The deed further provided that if Frank died before his wife and was survived by children, his wife and children would have a life use of the land, after which the children would take ownership in fee.
- The deed also stated that if Frank died without surviving children, the title would revert to the grantor, Lawrence Doyle.
- On February 23, 1897, Lawrence Doyle executed a second deed for the same property to Frank Doyle, stating its purpose was to remove the restrictions of the first deed and grant an absolute title.
- On March 1, 1902, Frank Doyle conveyed the property by warranty deed to John A. Stoller.
- Stoller later contracted to sell the land to Eilert Bauman, who refused to complete the purchase, claiming the title was unmerchantable due to the potential interests of Frank Doyle's children.
Procedural Posture:
- In a prior action, Eilert Bauman sued John A. Stoller in the circuit court of Livingston county to recover a cash payment on a land contract after refusing Stoller's title as unmerchantable.
- The circuit court held for Bauman, finding that the 1882 deed created a contingent interest in Frank Doyle's children that made Stoller's title unmerchantable.
- The Appellate Court for the Second District affirmed the circuit court's judgment.
- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Court's decision in the prior case.
- Following that loss, John A. Stoller filed the present bill in the circuit court of Livingston county against Frank Doyle's children to quiet title to the property.
- The circuit court found for Stoller, decreeing that he was the owner in fee simple and that the children's interests had been destroyed.
- Three of Doyle's minor children, as plaintiffs in error, brought the case to the Illinois Supreme Court for review.
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Issue:
Does a grantor's subsequent conveyance of his reversionary interest to the grantee merge with the grantee's determinable fee estate to destroy an intervening future interest limited to the grantee's children?
Opinions:
Majority - Mr. Justice Cartwright
No. A subsequent conveyance of the reversionary interest does not destroy the children's intervening future interest because that interest is an indestructible shifting use, not a destructible contingent remainder. The 1882 statutory deed granted Frank Doyle a fee simple estate, subject to conditional limitations. The future interest of the children was not a remainder, which follows the natural termination of a prior estate (like a life estate), but an interest that would take effect by cutting short, or in derogation of, Frank Doyle's fee simple. At common law, such an interest could not be created in a deed, but a modern statutory deed operates under the Statute of Uses, which validates such limitations as shifting uses or executory interests. Unlike contingent remainders, executory interests are not dependent on a preceding particular estate and cannot be destroyed by the merger of that estate with the reversion.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the critical distinction between destructible contingent remainders and indestructible executory interests within the context of modern statutory deeds. By classifying the children's interest as a shifting use that divests a prior fee simple, the court affirmed that the common law doctrine of destructibility by merger does not apply. This ruling provides greater security to future interests created in deeds that grant a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent, ensuring that the grantor's original intent cannot be easily defeated by subsequent conveyances designed to exploit archaic common law rules.
