Cestuy Que Trust

Fr. He in trust for whom, or for whose benefit, another is enfeoffed or seised of lands or tenements; he who is entitled in equity to take the rents and profits of lands whereof the legal estate is vested in some other person who is called the trustee; or, in other words, he who is the real, substantial and beneficial owner of lands which are held in trust, as distinguished from the trustee. Holthouse. Whishaw. 1 Cruise Dig. 381, tit. 12, c. 1. 1 Steph. Com. 343. 4 Kent's Com. 301—306. See Trust, Trustee. The late Mr. Justice Story has observed of this phrase, that it is " a barbarous Norman Law French phrase, and is so ungainly and ill adapted to the English idiom, that it is surprising that the good sense of the English legal profession has not long since banished it, and substituted some phrase in the English idiom, furnishing an anal(^ous meaning." 1 Story's Eq. Jur. § 321, note. Fide-commissary and beneficiary, (the former adapted from the fidei-commissarius of the Roman law,) are the terms suggested by the same author as proper substitutes. Id. ibid. With deference, however, to the criticism of this eminent jurist, the phrase in question seems httle more awkward than the similarly formed expressions cestuy que use, and cestuy que vie, and other terms of Norman origin now in daily use, for which no English equivalents have been sought or desired. Indeed the mere fact that these terms and phrases, with all their apparent rudeness of construction and want of harmony with the English idiom, have nevertheless been scrupulously retained in modern law and practice, seems to warrant the inference that their essential convenience and expressiveness have always been found effectually to outweigh any objections of the kind alluded to.