scintilla juris

a general indefinite equity, not applicable to one tract of land more than to another... It is a scintilla juris which we should find much difficulty in supporting against a complete legal title founded on an original claim of equal merit of the same character.

A spark of right. The smallest particle of legal right or interest. This term was applied to a legal fiction employed to enable feoffees to uses to sei Te and support contingent uses when they should come in existence, so that they might be executed by the statute of uses, 27 Hen. VIII. The theories upon which this fiction was sustained, were, that a vei-y small, yet sufficient, portion of the fee-simple of the estate — a mere scintilla juris — remained in the feoffee to uses; that such scintilla juris was a possibility of future seisin; that it was a capacity to receive future seisin, &c. Upon some such theory, the scintilla juris was held sufficient for the purpose desired to be accomplished,— the execution, by the statute of uses, of the contingent uses when they came in esse. By more modem writers the phrase has been somewhat loosely used in the sense of a spark of right sufficient to sustain an action or defence. Scintilla juris et titvli — a spark of law and title — is a possibility of seisin, which is supposed to exist in the grantee to uses, when all actual seisin is taken from him by the operation of the statute, upon a limitation of springing uses, and the creation of contingent ones. To illustrate this, let us take a springing use: a grant to A and his heirs, to the use of B and his heirs until C perform an act, and tlien to the use of C and his heirs. Here the statute executes the use in B, which, being coextensive with A's seisin, leaves no actual seisin in A. When, however, C performs the act, B's use ceases, and C's use springs up, and he enjoys the fee-simple; upon which the question arises, out of what seisin is C's use served ? It is said to be served out of A's original seisin; for, upon the cesser of B's use, it is contended that the original seisin reverted to A, for the purpose of serving C's use, and is a possibility of seisin or scintilla juris. If there must be a seisin somewhere to serve the future uses when they arise, it must be either in the original grantee or feoffee to uses or the cestui que use; but the seisin of the cestui que use cannot serve any other uses, because that would be a use upon a use, which the common law repudiates; there only remains, then, the grantee or feoffee, who is capable of the requisite seisin, which cannot be a vested interest, B for life, remainder to the use of his first son unborn in tail, with remainder to the use of C in fee, — what seisin remains in A until the birth of a son of B ■? A has not an actual seisin during the suspense of the contingency, but there is a possibility of seisin reverting to him; for, upon the birth of B's son, a seisin coextensive with the use limited to such son will vest in A, for the purpose of serving it. This doctrine of scintilla juris has been warmly contested. Lord Coke admitted it (Chudleigh's Case, 1 Co. 120 a); so did Mr. Booth (see his opinion at the end of Sheppard's Touchstone), Mr. Sanders (1 Uses and Trusts, ch. 2, § 2, 107 et seq.), and Mr. Burton ( Camp. p. 59, 6th ed. ); but Lord Bacon (Use.^, 47), Mr. Fearne {Cant. Rem. 300), Lord St. Leonards (1 Powers, ch. 1, §.$, and note 10 to Gilb. Uses, 296), and Mr. Preston (1 Estates, 170, and 1 Hayes Cone. 61) opposed it; and Lord St. Leonards contends that the doctrine never received a regular judicial decision. Wharton.