364
THE GREEN BAG
England " which it is said holds " that no church can unite with another church from which it had differed in any point of faith or polity without abandoning its entire property to a protesting minority, however insignifi cant." This is compared with the American doctrine which is stated as follows: "i. The first of these is when the property which is the subject of controversy has been, by the deed or will of the donor, or other instrument by which the property is held, by the express terms of the instrument devoted to the teaching, support, or spread of some specific form of religious doctrine or belief. "2. The second is when the property is held by a religious congregation which, by the na ture of its organization, is strictly independent of other ecclesiastical associations, and so far as church government is concerned, owes no fealty or obligation to any higher authority. "3 . Third is where the religious congregation or ecclesiastical body holding the property is but a subordinate member of some general church organization in which there are superior ecclesiastical tribunals, with a general and ultimate power of control in some supreme judicatory over the whole membership of that general organization. "In the first case the express trust created by the deed must be enforced, however difficult the questions involved may be; in the second, the usual rules governing voluntaryassociations will prevail, that the majority governs; in the third, the controversy must be submitted to the church tribunals, and the courts will not act except to follow and enforce their decision. This opinion has indeed made a plain path for the American courts to follow, and has cleared up whatever confusion before existed. But even before Watson v. Jones, the American courts had almost uniformly affirmed the power of the majority in the self-governing churches. Some of them had gone so far as to permit a majority to pass over recognized denominational lines." TRUSTS (Following Trust Property). James Barr Ames in the May Harvard Law Rei'iew (V. xix, p. 511) publishes a treatise on " Fol lowing Misappropriated Property into its Product." He formulates the rule as follows: "If property of any kind is misappropriated in any manner by one who knows it to belong,
either at law or in equity, to another, the true owner may charge the wrongdoer as a constructive trustee of any property in his hands which is the traceable product of the misappropriated res, or, if he prefers, he may enforce an equitable lien upon this traceable product to the extent of the value of the misappropriated res. "If the misappropriated res, or its product, has been transferred by the wrongdoer, the rights of the defrauded owner to assert a trust or lien against the transferee will vary accord ingly as the latter is a mala fide transferee, a bona fide donee, or a bona fide purchaser. "The mala fide transferee, obviously, is in the same case as the original wrongdoer. If he gets the legal title from the wrongdoer he will hold it as the wrongdoer held it. If he gets merely the possession from a thief or other converter, he is himself a converter and becomes a trustee of any property which he may receive in exchange for the converted res." If the bona fide donee dispose of the property before discovering the fraud he is not account able for its value, but must account for anything of value he receives for it, at least to the extent of the value of the trust res. If the bona fide donee did not get title he must surrender or account and the owner will have a lien on any proceeds of its transfer. A bona fide purchaser from the thief must sur render or account for the value, but if he gets title, of course, is under no obligation. Where the trust res is mingled with other funds, the owner may have a charge on the entire mingled fund or its product so long as its identity can be established. TRUSTS (Resulting, Statute of Frauds). "Resulting Trusts and the Statute of Frauds" are discussed by Harlan F. Stone, in the May Columbia Law Review (V. vi, p. 326). " The proper application of the statute," he says, "presupposes an accurate classification of trusts." He contends that the common classifications are inaccurate, and suggests that all trusts should be classified as ( i ) real trusts or (2) constructive trusts, being based on the presence or absence of intention, of the party sought to be held as trustee. " Result ing trusts " are usually regarded as either equivalent to constructive trusts or as a class
