# Incredibly obscure legal question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2000, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079 "2000-08-12T05:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/1 "2000-08-12T05:26:37Z")
The other day I bought a dictionary of legal terms, solely for my own personal enjoyment. After reading through it a bit, revelling in the majesty of the law, I was confronted with one definition that I just could not figure out at all. Here it is: > [@](#): > > **RULE IN SHELLEY’S CASE**   when in the same **conveyance** , an **estate** for life is given to the ancestor with **remainder** to the ancestor’s **heirs** , the the ancestor takes the **fee simple** (or fee tail) remainder estate and the heirs take nothing. If, for example, a, fee owner, conveys _“to B for life, then to the heirs of B,”_ then B takes both the life estate and the remainder in fee simple. The rule, created in 1324, has been abolished in England and in a majority of American jurisdictions. Can any of you legal scholars shed some more light on this? While we’re on the subject, the book also mentions the Domesday Book, which seems pretty much completely irrelevant to 20[sup]th[/sup] Century American legal practice. Also, I discovered that the word “pot” is a slang term for marijuana, which explains so much that I hadn’t been able to understand before ;). ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/2 "2000-08-12T05:28:32Z")
Preview before using html escape sequences. That should look like this: > [@](#): > > **RULE IN SHELLEY’S CASE**   when in the same **conveyance** , an **estate** for life is given to the ancestor with **remainder** to the ancestor’s **heirs** , the the ancestor takes the **fee simple** (or fee tail) remainder estate and the heirs take nothing. If, for example, a, fee owner, conveys _“to B for life, then to the heirs of B,”_ then B takes both the life estate and the remainder in fee simple. The rule, created in 1324, has been abolished in England and in a majority of American jurisdictions. ---
**Author:** ![Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/57b2e6/32.png) [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/3 "2000-08-12T06:01:39Z")
My memory is a little dim on this one, but I’ll give it a shot. Okay, say it’s 1289, and you’re an English nobleman. You want the family castle and surrounding land to stay in your family forever. You’re afraid that your son will gamble it all away, sell it to fund a crusade, or in some way screw up your plan to keep the castle in your family forever. So you don’t leave it to your son. Instead, you leave him a life estate in your will, directing that the castle go to his heirs upon his death. Under the Rule in Shelley’s case, this type of plan won’t work, as the two estates (the life estate and the remainder to the heirs) merge, giving the son a fee simple estate. (I’ll omit the nuance of fee tail.) Fee simple essentially means complete ownership, so the son can leave it to whoever he pleases. ---
**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/4 "2000-08-12T06:04:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by waterj2 \* > \*\*The other day I bought a dictionary of legal terms, solely for my own personal enjoyment. \*\* OK, here was your 1st mistake. 😃 Would you like a copy of the IRC, also? ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/5 "2000-08-12T09:40:25Z")
Hey don’t laugh at that. I regularly, and I’ll have to whisper this…read the dictionary, usually to find out etymologies, probably 3 or 4 times a day. ---
**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/6 "2000-08-12T09:56:11Z")
yes, but the dictionary is written in ENGLISH. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2000, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/7 "2000-08-13T06:21:25Z")
I have a strong desire to be conversant in every possible field of endevour, and have research material available to cover any possible detail that I might be curious about. If I had the money, there’s no telling what I might walk out of a bookstore with. In addition to that book, I also bought 2 books about economics (both by important and Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economists) and one about saké that day. Anyways, is this the last word on Rule in Shelley’s Case? Anything further I need to know before I attempt to become a medieval English lord? ---
**Author:** ![2nd\_Law](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/f475e1/32.png) [@2nd\_Law](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2nd_Law)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2000, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-obscure-legal-question/29079/8 "2000-08-13T07:28:45Z")
Well, under the rule, the owner could not only leave the estate to anyone he wished by will, he could also sell it during his life. Just don’t get in to Fee Simple Subject to Executory Interest. For that I’d have to dig up my class notes, or my bar review test.