Leake v Leake

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 06 May 1843
• Date: 06 May 1843
• Court: Rolls Court (Ireland)

Leake

and

Leake.

Rolls.

CASES

IN THE

COURTS OF CHANCERY, ROLLS,

AND

Equity Exchequer.

Lands, held under a lease for lives renewable for ever, were by marriage settlement conveyed to trustees to the use of G. L. the husband, for life, remainder (subject to jointure and portions for younger children) to the first and other sons of the marriage in quasi tail. After the death of G. L., the younger children filed a bill to raise their portions. In 1838 there was a final decree for a sale; under which, in 1843, the lands were sold. In 1842, a renewal of the lease was executed to the defendant, the quasi tenant in tail, against whom, pending the suit, several judgments had been obtained of which no notice bad been taken.—The purchaser objected to the title because of those judgments. Held, on exception to the Master's report of good title, that the renewal of 1842 ought to have been to the trustees of the settlement;—that its having been to the defendant, made him a mere trustee of the legal estate upon the trusts of the settlement; and that the judgments in question did not constitute a valid objection to the title.

This case came before the Court on an exception taken by the purchaser to the Master's report of good title to the lands sold under the final decree in this cause. The objection was that certain judgments,* crown bonds and recognizances, were outstanding on record, which (as set out) appeared of dates subsequent to the filing of the bill. They were divided into two classes: one, comprising those prior, and the other those subsequent, to the final decree.

It appeared that, by a marriage settlement bearing date the 21st of December 1802, the lands in question (which were held under a lease for lives renewable for ever) were conveyed in strict settlement, and a term was created to secure portions for younger children. The bill in this cause was filed on the 6th of June 1830, for the purpose of raising those portions. A decree to account was pronounced on the 19th of June 1833, and a final decree for a sale on the 7th of June 1838.

The original lease of the lands was dated the 21st of May 1728. A renewal of that lease was executed on the 3rd of April 1807 to George Leake, the tenant for life under the settlement of 1802, in form a new lease for the lives of George Leake, the tenant for life (he being the only surviving cestui que vie in the previous renewal), and George Leake the defendant, then a child, and Thomas Furnell; which last two lives were inserted in place of those that had fallen. George Leake, the tenant for life, died in the year 1823, whereupon George Leake the defendant became entitled under the settlement to the quasi estate tail, and to him a further renewal was executed in 1842. The encumbrances which formed the subject of the exception were created by him pending the suit.

Mr. Molyneux, for the purchaser—The original trust term is gone, by reason of the fall of all the lives in the lease subsisting at the date of the settlement; and the whole legal estate is vested in the defendant George Leake, by virtue of the last renewal. The judgments have, therefore, attached upon the legal estate, and the Court of Chancery has no power to restrain the judgment creditors from pursuing their remedies at law

against the lands in question. Since the case of Piers v. Piers (a), it cannot be contended in this Court that, where judgments are liens upon a legal estate sold under a decree, and the fund is deficient, the Court can administer the produce of the sale in discharge of encumbrances according to their priority in the absence of the judgment creditors, even those to whose demands the fund will not reach. The rights of such creditors cannot be displaced or bound by the proceedings in equity to which they are no parties; and they are still entitled to their ordinary remedies at law, against which no injunction lies. But the case of Rolleston v. Morton (b) goes further,—deciding that a creditor by judgment against the owner even of an equity of redemption is a necessary party in a foreclosure cause. A Court of Equity, then, cannot protect a purchaser from proceedings by judgment creditors at law against the debtor's lands, even although the accounts in a creditor's suit instituted for sale of those lands were correctly taken, and the funds distributed amongst the creditors according to their priority. In the present case, the inheritor is seized in quasi fee of the lands included in the settlement, subject only in equity to the charges secured by that settlement. After satisfaction of those charges, he has a beneficial interest and not a mere naked estate at law; and his judgment creditors, in addition to their legal rights, have acquired, even in equity, a right against that beneficial interest. The purchaser must, therefore, take the estate subject to the rights of the judgment creditors...