Also known as: seisin · seizin · seisin doctrine
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A common-law principle requiring that seisin remain vested at all times in an identifiable person. The rule prevented creation of remainders in unascertainable persons or groups and barred remainders subject to conditions that risked a gap in seisin when a prior estate ended.
Destiny Davis conveyed Greenacre to Denise Donovan by general warranty deed containing the covenant of seisin. After closing Denise discovered that Destiny had never held valid title because a prior unrecorded conveyance had already passed seisin to a third party. Denise sued for breach and recovered damages measured by the value of the lost estate.
Devon Drake started and pursued a fox across open land with his hounds. Damian Decker shot and carried away the fox while the hounds were in full cry. Devon claimed that his pursuit gave him seisin-like possession sufficient to support an action. The court rejected the claim because no identifiable person held continuous seisin of the wild animal.
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Dorothy Daniels received a legislative grant of land from the state. Years later the state attempted to rescind the grant. Doris Duffy, claiming under a later conveyance, argued that the original grant never transferred seisin because the legislature lacked authority. The court held that the grant passed seisin and could not be divested by subsequent legislative action.
Dawson Steel leased a warehouse to the United States for a one-year term under condemnation. The company argued that the temporary ouster destroyed its seisin. The Court held that the government took only a term and left the owner's underlying seisin intact for compensation purposes.
Delta Dynamics and Dillon Energy held Blackacre as joint tenants. Delta executed a deed purporting to convey its interest to itself as tenant in common. The court examined whether the deed transferred seisin and thereby severed the joint tenancy without delivery to a third party.
Duarte Shipping owned a chicken farm. Military aircraft flew so low that the noise and vibration made continued operation impossible. The owner claimed a taking of its seisin in the airspace above the land. The Court recognized that frequent low flights could destroy the owner's right to exclusive possession.
The doctrine treats the fee tail as equivalent to a fee simple for dower purposes. The spouse therefore receives a dower-type life estate measured as though the decedent had held fee simple absolute. That life estate remains subject to any executory interests or reversions that already limited the fee tail.
The covenant promises that the grantor holds good title at the moment of conveyance. A recorded encumbrance existing at closing breaches the covenant even if the grantee had constructive notice. The covenant runs with the land and permits the grantee to recover damages from the original grantor.
Birth of issue satisfies the condition and expands the holder's power of alienation to equal that of a fee simple absolute owner. The expanded power permits conveyance of full title that extinguishes prior future interests the holder could not previously destroy.
…present, through waste and unoccupied lands, which must inevitably and speedily have terminated in corporal possession or bodily seisin, confers such a right to the object of it as to make any one a wrongdoer who shall interfere and shoulder the spoil. The justice's judgment ought, therefore, in my opinion, to be affirmed.