Cause removed from the Court of Equity of Craven county. John E. Higgs, being indebted to Seth Muse in the sum of $702.50, in 1846, made a deed to the said Muse, for two negn> slaves, Abram and Joe, as security for that sum, and at the same time took from the latter a deed of defeasance, declaring the terms on which the said slaves were conveyed to Muse, the substance of which was, that whenever the said sum of $702.50, with interest, was paid, Muse should recon-vey the said…
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
“"The objection that the declaration of trust was not in writing, and was therefore void, is not tenable. There is in this state no statute which requires the decía ration of a trust, made at the time the legal title passes to one, who agrees to hold in trust,” accompanying the transmission of the legal title, "sliali bo In writing.””
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1860-12-05
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently March 1964
1 district · 3 state decisions
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.
¶1
The bill is not filed for the purpose of ob
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taining specific performance of an agreement to convey the slave, mentioned in the pleadings, but for the purpose of setting up and having*enforced, a trust declared in favor of the plaintiffs, by their father, at the time the title was passed to the intestate of the defendant, Swann.
¶2
The objection,-that the declaration of trust was not in writing, and was, therefore, void, is not tenable. There is, in this State, no statute which requires the declaration of a trust, made at the time the legal title passes to one, who agrees to hold in trust, shall be in writing. This question is settled by the case of
Shelton
v. Shelton, 5 Jones’ Eq. 292, and the learning on the subject, is there fully explained. In that case, the subject-matter was land
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in this, it is a slave ; but there is no distinction between land and slaves. The act of 1819, Rev. Code, chap. 50, sec. 11, puts contracts to sell land and slaves on the same footing, and has no reference to a declaration of trust, as is shown in that case. The objection, based on the rules of evidence, is also there shown to have no bearing on the question. In short, that case is decisive of this ; and it is unnecessary to elaborate the subject any further.
