value; and if he so obtains it, being still ignorant of the prior equity, he is as much entitled to protection as any other purchaser of a legal title. For example, if a trustee should, in violation of his trust, contract to sell the land to A, receiving the purchase money at the time, or should make an equitable mortgage by deposit of the title-deeds, and should afterwards, in discharge of his obligation, convey the legal title to A, the latter could not be charged with the prior equity;[1] for one who takes a legal title in discharge of a claim against the transferrer is a purchaser for value.[2] It follows, therefore, that these cases do not come within the doctrine of tabula in naufragio, and it may be fairly said that that doctrine survives only in the unjust and much-criticised English rule of tacking.
In conclusion, the results of the preceding pages may be summed up as follows: The purchaser of any right, in its nature transmissible, whether a right in rem or a right in personam, acquires the right free from all equities of which he had no notice at the time of its acquisition. This proposition, it is hoped, will find favor with the reader in point of legal principle. It can hardly fail to commend itself on the score of justice and mercantile convenience.
J. B. Ames.
- ↑ Ratcliffe v. Barnard, 6 Ch. 652; Cooke v. Wilton, 29 Beav. 100; Leask v. Scott, 2 Q. B. Div. 376; Gibson v. Lenhart, 101 Pa. 522. But see contra, Barnard v. Campbell, 55 N. Y. 466, 58 N. Y. 73. But by the law of New York one who takes a title in payment of a debt is not considered to be a purchaser for value. Dickerson v. Tillinghast, 4 Paige, 215; Stevenson v. Brennan, 79 N. Y. 254.
- ↑ Taylor v. Blacklock, 33 Ch. D. 560; Merchants’ Co. v. Abbott, 131 Mass. 397.
