APPOINTMENT. In the law of England there are frequently reserved in common law conveyances granted on a consideration, and in family settlements, certain powers, as they are called, such as powers of jointuring, selling, charging land with the payment of money; and the subsequent exercise of the power is called an A. This A.—which may be made either by deed or by will—is not considered as an independent conveyance, but is merely ancillary to the deed or instrument in which the power of A. is reserved, and from which the party in whose favor the A. is made for most purposes derives his title. The courts of equity give relief against a.defeetive A.; or defective execution of a power, where there is what is called a "meritorious consideration" in the person apply ing for such relief. As to what amounts to such meritorious consideration, lord St. Leonards, in his work on powers, lays down that equity will relieve the following parties: 1. A purchaser, including in such term a mortgagee and lessee; 2. A creditor;
3. A wife; 4. A legitimate child; and 5. A charity. But in the case of a defective A. by a wife in favor of her husband, there is no relief in equity; nor is the equity extended to a natural child; nor to a grandchild; nor to a father or mother, or brother or sister, even of the whole blood, much less of the half-blood; nor to a nephew or cousin. Against the legal consequences of an A., the courts of equity give no aid.
In the Scotch law, the expressions reRereed power and faculty to burden correspond to the English phrase "power of A.;" and the deed or instrument subsequently executed in virtue of the reserved power, is simply described according to the nature and quality of the conveyance so made; but the term A. is not a technical word in Scotland.