Grove v Bastard
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 06 May 1848 |
| Date | 06 May 1848 |
| Court | High Court of Chancery |
English Reports Citation: 41 E.R. 1082
HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY
g-rovk v. bastard. May 6, 1848. In a suit for specific performance by a vendor whose title was derived under a suspicious will, it appearing that the heir had failed in an action of ejectment, and afterwards in a motion for a new trial, the Master reported in favour of the title, and the Vice-Chancellor confirmed the report, and decreed specific performance without requiring the Plaintiff to establish the will. But the Lord Chancellor, on appeal, reversed that decision, holding that it was more consonant to the principles of this Court that the validity of the will in such a case should be conclusively J PH. MO. GROVE V. BASTARD 1083 determined, if possible, between the vendor and the heir than that it should be left to be litigated between the heir and the purchaser after the purchase-money should have been paid. This was a suit for specific performance. The vendors were trustees for sale, under the will of a testator, who, by his will, which was executed during his last illness and within a few months before his death, after leaving inconsiderable legacies to his mother and brothers and sisters, devised and bequeathed the great bulk of his property to the Plaintiffs, upon certain trusts, for the benefit of the solicitor who drew the will and his two children, one of whom was the testator's godchild. The testator died in 1844. After the Plaintiffs had contracted with the Defendant for the sale of the property, the testator's heir at law [620] brought an action of ejectment for it, on the ground that the will had been obtained fraudulently and by undue influence ; but, at the trial in July 1846, a verdict was found for the Defendants (at law), and a motion for a new trial was, iti June 1847, refused. In the meantime the present suit had been instituted against the purchaser, who had refused to complete, on the ground of the suspicion attaching to the will, and the claim set up by the heir. The usual reference having been made as to title, the Master, by his report, dated the 16th of June 1847, found that a good title to the property had been shewn before the filing of the bill, and exceptions to that report were overruled by Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce, and a decree pronounced for specific performance, with costs. On an appeal by the Defendant from that decision, Mr. Purvis and Mr. Willcock, for the Appellant, contended that the will was of too suspicious a...
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Boyse v Rossborough
...element of equitable jurisdiction, but there are old precedents in which there was none. Lord Chancellor Cottenham, in Grove v. Bastard (2 Ph. 619), recognised distinctly the right of the Court to entertain a suit like the present; and the will in that case being objectionable, he required ......
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Hindson v Weatherill
...Middleton (Cox, 112), Harris y. Tremenheere (15 Ves. 34), Jones v. Jones (3 Mer. 161), Hunter v. Atkins (3 My. & K. 113), Grove v. Bastard (2 Ph. 619), Russell v. Jackson (9 Hare, 387). the vice-chancellor [Sir John Stuart]. This is a bill filed by a person himself beneficially interested u......
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Rooke v Lord Kensington
...before the late statute 15 & 16 Viet. c. 86. If it were-necessary to cite authorities for that proposition, the case of Grove v. Bastard (2 Ph. 619) is a very clear one, in which Lord Cottenham says that there is nothing analogous, to the right to a declarator in this country; and it is not......
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M' Culloch v Gregory
...were cases where there had been actual litigation by the heir, or notice given to the purchaser of intended litigation: Grove v. Bastard (2 Ph. 619; S. C. 1 De G. M'N. & G. 69), Green v. Fulsford (2 Beav. 70), Sugden's Vendors and Purchasers, as cited in the judgment in Boyse v. Bossborough......
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THE LIMITS OF THE DECLARATORY JUDGMENT.
...De G & Sm 164. (11) See Woolf & Woolf, supra note 9 at 9-10. See also Elliotson v Knowles (1842), 11 LJ Ch 399; Grove v Bastard (1848), 41 ER 1082, 2 Ph (12) (1845), 71 ER 898 at 916, 2 Holt EQ 334. (13) Ibid. See also Woolf & Woolf, supra note 9 at 9-10. (14) See Martin, supra ......