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39 Minn. 49

Horrigan v. Rice

Supreme Court of Minnesota

Decided June 26, 1888

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1888-06-26

This action was brought in the district court for Ramsey county for alleged breach of a covenant of seizin in a deed from defendants to plaintiff, and was tried, without a jury, by Brill, J., who ordered judgment for defendants, from which judgment the plaintiff appeals.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Where at the time of the conveyance the purchaser has in himself the valid title to the premises, he cannot sue on the covenant it contains, for they only extend to a title existing in a third person, which may defeat the estate granted by the convenantor. They do not embrace”

quoted by 1 later decision, including H. Weston Lumber Co. v. Lacey Lumber Co.

Relies on Furness v. Williams

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-06-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 1938

3 state decisions

10188818901900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Mitchell, J.

¶1Where, at the time of the conveyance, the purchaser has in himself the valid title to the premises, he cannot sue on the covenants it contains, for they only extend to a title existing in a third person which may defeat the estate granted by the covenantor. They do not embrace a title already vested in the covenantee. “It mever can be permitted to a person to accept a deed with covenants of seizin, and then turn round upon his grantor, and allege that his covenant is broken, for that, at the time he accepted the deed, he himself was seized of the premises.” Fitch v. Baldwin, 17 John. 161; Beebe v. Swartwout, 3 Gilman, 162, 179; Furness v. Williams, 11 Ill. 229; Rawle, Cov. § 268; Bigelow, Estop. 346. This is decisive of the only point in this case. Had the plaintiff been induced through fraud to accept a deed of his own property, or had he done so in ignorance of the facts affecting his own rights, he might have been entitled to some form of relief. But no such suggestion is made either in his pleadings or his proof. He predicates his right to recover solely upon the covenant of seizin.

¶2Judgment affirmed.

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