## Facts

- A father conveyed a farm by deed to his son.
- As part of the arrangement, the son executed an instrument purporting to give the father a life estate in the use and improvement of one-half of the premises.
- A New Hampshire statute required deeds conveying interests in land to be attested by two subscribing witnesses.
- The instrument concerning the father’s life estate was attested by only one witness.
- The father sought to enforce his claimed life estate through a writ of entry; the son argued the one-witness defect made the instrument void and incapable of passing any interest.

## Issues

1. Whether an instrument affecting a life estate in land was ineffective because it lacked the two witnesses required by statute.
2. Whether noncompliance with statutory deed formalities renders the transaction wholly inoperative so that no legal or equitable interest can arise.
3. Whether the family arrangement raised a use that could be executed into a legally cognizable estate under the Statute of Uses.

## Decision

- The court rejected the argument that the one-witness defect made the arrangement wholly void.
- The court sustained the father’s claimed life estate (or an equivalent present interest) notwithstanding the statutory defect.
- Judgment was entered for the party defending the father’s life-estate interest (reported in summaries as “judgment for the defendant”).

## Legal Principles

- Under the Statute of Uses, when one person stands seised to the use of another, the beneficiary is deemed in lawful seisin, estate, and possession.
- A use may be raised by a covenant to stand seised in favor of a close relative; consideration sufficient to raise the use may arise from blood or marriage and need not be strictly monetary.
- A statute requiring deed formalities (such as attestation by two witnesses) does not necessarily displace the Statute of Uses or prevent a use from arising and being executed into an enforceable estate.
- A deed that is defective as a statutory conveyance may still support recognition of an enforceable interest through the law of uses, so the defect does not make the transaction wholly inoperative.

## Conclusion

The court held that the failure to meet the statute’s two-witness requirement did not automatically nullify the family conveyance arrangement; a use in the father’s favor could arise from the transaction and be executed under the Statute of Uses, allowing enforcement of the father’s life estate despite the formal defect.


French v. French, 3 N.H. 234 (N.H. 1825)