Resulting trust
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 61 U.S. 558 - Irvine v. Marshall · 1857Most cited · 111 citing opinions
the agent who so acts becomes a trustee for his principal. He cannot hold the land under an entry for himself, otherwise than as a trustee for his principal.
How the Supreme Court has restated “Resulting trust”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Resulting trust,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Resulting trust”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “Resulting trust” — 268 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 5 definitions, chronological · 1812–1915
- ORIGINAL
Since the statute of frauds nothing is left of the whole fabric of parol trusts but a resulting trust . . . which is a trust arising by implication, from the fact that the purchase money was paid by, or the consideration moved from, the party who claims the benefit of the trust.
I am now bound down by the statute of frauds and perjuries, to construe nothing a resulting trust, but what are there called trusts by operation of law; and what are those? Why, first, when an estate is purchased in the name of one person, but the money or consideration is given by another; or secondly, where a trust is declared only as to part, and nothing said as to the rest, what remains, undisposed of, results to the heir at law, and they cannot be said to be trustees for the residue.
Lord Hardwicke's rule
Where the purchase-money is all paid by one, and the property is conveyed to another, there is a resulting trust in favor of the party paying, unless there be something which takes the case out of the operation of the general rule. But where he furnishes only a part of the amount paid no trust arises unless his part is some definite portion of the whole, and is paid for some aliquot part of the property, as a fourth, a third, or a moiety. There must be no uncertainty as to the proportion of the property to which the trust extends. Such a trust must arise, if at all, at the time the purchase is made. The funds must then be advanced and invested. It cannot be created by after-advances or funds subsequently furnished. It does not arise upon subsequent payments under a contract by another to purchase.
But the event that happened,—her death before January 1, 1910,—although evidently in contemplation as a possible event, was not provided for. What then happens? The trust has failed; the trustee is functus officio; he cannot in equity retain the fund for himself; he must simply redeliver it to him from whom it came. In other words, there is a resulting trust for the donor.