or covenantor.[1] The absolute owner of land was conceived of as having in himself two distinct things, the seisin and the use. As he might make livery of seisin and retain the use, so he was permitted, at last, to grant away the use and keep the seisin. The grant of the use was furthermore assimilated to the grant of a chattel or money. A quid pro quo, or a deed, being essential to the transfer of a chattel or the grant of a debt,[2] it was required also in the grant of a use. Equity might conceivably have enforced uses wherever the grant was by deed. But the chancellors declined to carry the innovation so far as this. They enforced only those gratuitous covenants which tended to “the establishment of the house” of the covenantor; in other words, covenants made in consideration of blood or marriage.[3]
[To be continued.]
THE PRINCIPLE OF LUMLEY v. GYE, AND ITS APPLICATION.
The facts in the case of Lumley v. Gye[4] may be stated in a few words. The plaintiff, the lessee of a theatre, had made a contract with Johanna Wagner to perform in his theatre for a certain time, with a condition in the contract that she should not sing nor use her talents elsewhere during the term, without the plaintiff’s consent in writing. The defendant, whilst the agreement with Wagner was in force, and with full knowledge of its existence, and maliciously intending to injure the plaintiff, persuaded her to break her contract and refuse to perform in the plaintiff’s theatre, and to depart from the employment. Mr. Justice Coleridge, in his dissenting opinion in the case, which has
- ↑ Plow. 298, 308; Buckley v. Simonds, Winch, 35–37, 59, 61; Hore v. Dix, 1 Sid. 25, 27; Pybus v. Mitford, 2 Lev. 75, 77.
- ↑ That a debt was, as suggested by Professor Langdell (Contracts, §100), regarded as a grant, finds strong confirmation in the fact that Debt was the exclusive remedy upon a covenant to pay money down to a late period. Chawner v. Bowes, Godb. 217. See, also, 1 Roll. Ab. 518, pl. 2 and 3; Brown v. Hancock, Hetl. 110, 111, per Barkley.
- ↑ Bacon, St. of Uses (Rowe’s ed.), 13–14.
- ↑ 2 El. & Bl. 216.
