Use

A confidence reposed in another, who was made tenant of the land, or terretenant, that he would dispose of the land according to the intention of the cestui que use, or him to whose use it was granted, and suffer him to take the profits.

Plowd. 352; Gilb. Uses 1; Saund. Uses 2; 2 Bla. Com. 328.

A right in one person, called the cestui que use, to take the profits of land of which another has the legal title and possession, together with the duty of defending the same and of making estates thereof according to the direction of the cestui que use. Uses have been said to have been derived from the fidei commissa of the Roman law; but see Trust. It was the duty of a Roman magistrate, the prastor fidei commissarius, whom Bacon terms the particular chancellor for uses, to enforce the observance of this confidence.

Inst 2. 23. 2.

They were introduced into England by the ecclesiastics in the reign of Edward III., before 1377, for the purpose of avoiding the statutes of mortmain; and the clerical chancellors of those times held them to be fidei commissa, and binding in conscience. To obviate many inconveniences and difficulties which had arisen out of the doctrine and introduction of uses, the Statute of 27 Henry VIII. c. 10, commonly called the Statute of Uses, or, in conveyances and pleadings, the statute for transferring uses into possession, was passed, it enacts that “when any person shall be seised of lands, etc., to the use, confidence, or trust of any other person or body politic, the person or corporation entitled ter the use in feesimple, fee-tail, for life, or years, or otherwise, shall from thenceforth stand and be seised or possessed of the land, etc., of and in the like estate as they have in the use, trust, or confidence; and that the estates of the persons so seised to the uses shall be deemed to be in him or them that have the use, in such quality, manner, form, and condition as they had before in the use." The statute thus executes the use, —that is, it conveys the possession to the use, and transfers the use to the possession, and, in A modern use is an estate of right which Is acquired through the operation of the statute of 27 Henry VIII. c. 10; and which, when it may take effect according to the rules of the common law, Is called the legal estate, and when it may not is denominated a use, with a term descriptive of its modification; Corni'sb, Uses 35. The common-law Judges decided, in the construction of this statute, that a use could not be raised upon a use; Dy. 155 (A); and that on a feoffment to A and his heirs to the use of D and his heirs in trust for C and his heirs, the statute executed only the first use, and that the second was a mere nullity. The judges also held that as the statute mentioned only such persons as were seised to the use of others, it did not extend to a term of years, or other chattel interests, of which a termer is not seised but only possessed; 2 Bla. Com. 336. The rigid literal construction of the statute by the courts of law again opened the doors of the chancery courts; 1 Madd. Ch. Pr. 448. Uses and trusts are often spoken of together by the older and some modern writers, the distinction being those trusts which were of a permanent nature and required no active duty of the trustee being called uses; those in which the trustee had an active duty to perform, as, the payment of debts, raising portions, and the like, being called special or active trusts, or simply trusts; 1 Spence, Eq. Jur. 448. For the creation of a use, a consideration either valuable, as, money, or good, as relationship in certain degrees, was necessary; 3 Swanst.

591; 7 Co. 40; Shephard v. Little, 14 Johns. (N. Y.) 210.

See Resulting Use. The property must have been in case, and such that seisin could be given; Cro. Eliz. 401. Uses were alienable, although in many respects resembling choses in action, which were not assignable at common law; 2 Bla. Com. 331; when once raised, it might be granted or devised in fee, in tail, for life, or for years; 1 Spence, Eq. Jur. 455. The effect of the statues of uses was much restricted by the construction adopted by the courts: it practically resulted, it has been said, in the addition of these words, to the use, to every conveyance; Will. R. P. 133. The intention of the statute was to destroy the estate of the feoffee to use, and to transfer it by the very act which created it to the cestui que use, as if the seisin or estate of the feoffee, together with the use, had, uno flatu, passed from the feoffor to the cestui que use. A very full and clear account of the history and present condition of the law of uses is given in 2 Wash. R. P. 91, 156. See, as to a use upon a use, Tud. L. Cas. R. Pr. 335. Consult Spence, Eq. Jur.; Bisph. Eq. The statute executed the use and vested the title in the cestui que use when the feoffee to use had no active duty to perform; if he had he was a feoffee to trusts and not to uses; and this might occur even if the word “use” were employed. The employment of the word “use” is not essential to bring the limitation within the statute; it. is a question of the intent of the parties; Jenks, Mod. Land L. 127; [1897] A. C. 658. It was said in Symson v. Turner, 1 Eq. Cas. 1.

By limiting it upon a term of years; 2.

By limiting it to A to the use of or in trust for B to the use of or in trust for C; 3. By limiting it to trustees with active duties. A corporation cannot be seised to a use; see Jenks, Mod. Land L. 127. They are bound by equitable interests, at least when those interests are limited in favor of charities; id., citing 10 Rep. 23. It is said that the word used is not derived from the Latin usus but comes from the Latin opus; through an Anglo-French form oeps.

Pollock, Contracts 5; 3 L. Quart. Rev. 115. See Charitable Uses; Trusts; The Origin of Uses, by James Barr Ames, Lect. on Leg. Hist. 233.

In its un technical sense, the word use has been variously constructed; Heaston v. Randolph Co., 20 Ind. 398; Cannell v. Ins. Co., 59 Me. 582; Stockbridge I. Co. v. Iron Co., 107 Mass. 324; thus, “to use a port” means to enter it, so as to derive advantage from its protection; Snow v. Ins. Co., 48 N. Y. 624, 8 Am. Rep. 578. The “use of liquors to excess” in a life insurance application means habitual, and not occasional, use to excess; Provident S. L. A. Soc. v. Bank, 126 Fed. 360, 61 C. C. A. 310. In Civil Law. A right of receiving so much of the natural profits of a thing as is necessary to daily sustenance. It differs from usufruct, which is a right not only to use, but to enjoy.

1 Bro. Civ. Law 184.