DEED Ian act, Lat. factum, something, done). A written instrument. sealed and delivered, whereby a legal right is created or transferred. Though the term is popularly employed only in connection with instruments for the conveyance of land, it is not, in the legal sense, thus re stricted. being equally applicable to a consider able variety of other legal transactions effected by the same solemn form. A contract, an ap pointment to office, the surrender of a right of action, may be effected by deed, as well as the transfer of title to land or goods. In other words, it is not the event, or transaction, but the manner in which it is performed, which con stitutes the deed. So, too, it is in a popular, rather than a strictly legal sense, that a sealed writing, in and by itself considered, is described as a deed. Until delivered to the party who is to have the benefit of it. it is still a mere writing, an escrow scriptural, an iodinate deed. The perfected deed is compounded of three dis tinct writing„ the act of scaling, and the act of delivery.
The superior validity of a transaction effected by deed, as compared with one eon:mutilated by spoken words or by ordinary writings, is a matter of history. Blackstone declares that a deed derives its name (deed, fact um) from the eiremnsthnce that "it is the most solemn and authentic act that a man can possibly perform with relation to the disposal of his property; and therefore a man shall always be estoppel by his own deed, or not permitted to aver or prove anything in contradiction to what he has once so solemnly and deliberately k 2 Coin. 295). In fact, the deed is the one form in which the formal or ceremonial mode of incurring an obligation or transferring a legal right survives among us, corresponding in that respect to the mancipatio and the stipidatio of the Roman law, the latter of which still appears in the usual ceremony of marriage. Recent investigations into early legal procedure show conclusively that in primitive society a peculiar importance and validity attaches to legal transactions of the formal sort, and, though the tendency of ad Va ing civilization is to reduce or eliminate the dis tinction betwen formal and informal obligation,, this has never been completely ae•omplished.
The conclusive effect of a deed is probably 1111P to the fact that it originated at a time when writing was a rare accomplishment, confined to those who had taken holy orders, and that its char acter, as a solemn form of engagement, had become established before the art of writing became more general. Its superior validity still consists in the fact mentioned by Blackstone, in the passage quoted above, that he who makes a deed is conclusively bound by the statements which it contains, and that, in contracts and other transactions which ordinarily require a consideration to support them, no consideration is necessary if the transaction be consmonmted by deed. Technically, a contract in the form of a deed is known as a specialty.
Deeds arc of two kind-, deeds poll and inden tures—the former being of only one part, i. e. binding only one person or group of persons, in the same way and to the same effect; and the latter having two or more parties, who become bound to one another. Thus, the ordinary deed of conveyance. whereby A, or A and 11, convey land to C, the latter entering into no engagement with reference to the transaction, and the grantor or grantors, only. executing it, is a deed poll: whereas, articles of association or of part nership. or any other bilateral contract, under seal. whereby several parties become mutually bound to one another, is an indenture. The names are derived from the circumstance that deeds of the latter sort were formerly written in duplicate. etc., on the same piece of parch ment, which was then cut so as to separ•te them by an indented and irregular line. whereby their identity could afterwards be established. The deed poll, on the other hand, only one copy being required, was polled, i. e. shaved or rut off smooth. This difference in the form of deed. having disappeared. the term indenture is often carelessly employed in deeds which arc really deeds loll. The distinction between them has not, however, been obliterated by their assimila tion in form, and a deed purporting to bind only one party, or, whatever it may purport, executed by only one, is still a deed poll and binds only the giver thereof and not the person to whom it is delivered.