VENDOR AND VENDEE   737

Therefore, I venture to say that I doubt whether it is a true description of the relation between the parties to say that from the time of the making of the contract, or at any time, one is ever trustee for the other. They are only parties to a contract of sale and purchase of which a ('ourt of Equity will under certain circumstances decree a specific performance. But even if the vendor was a trustee for the vendee, it does not seem to me at all to follow that anything under the contract of insurance would pass. As I have said, the contract of insurance is a mere personal contract for the payment of money. It is not a contract which runs with the land. If it were, there ought to be a decree that upon the completion of the purchase the policy be handed over. But that is not the law. The contract of insurance does not run with the land; it is a mere personal contract, and unless it is assigned no suit or action can be maintained upon it except between the original parties to it. 31} Brother Cotton has mentioned the cases in Equity. As I have said, it seems to me that the ease is the same in Equity as at Common Law. At Common Law, with regard to marine policies, it has been always held that where there is a policy, and where the subject-matter of the insurance is sold during the running of the policy. no interest under the policy passes unless it is made part of the contract of purchase and sale, so that it would be considered in a Court of Equity as assigned. * * *

I therefore, with deference, think that the Plaintiffs here cannot recover from the Defendant, on the ground that there was no relation of any kind or sort between the Plaintiff and the Defendant with regard to the policy, and therefore none with regard to any money received under the policy.

JAMES, L. J.: I am unable to concur in affirming the judgment of the Master of the Bolls. According to my view of the case the Plaintiff's contention is founded not only on what I may call the natural equity which commends itself to the general sense of the lay world not instructed in legal principles, but also on artificial equity as it is understood and administered in our system of jurispr'I1dence.

I am of opinion that the relation between the parties was truly and strictly that of trustee and cestui que trust. I agree that it is not accurate to call the relation between the vendor and purchaser of an estate under a contract while the contract is in fieri the relation of trustee and cestui que trust. But that is because it is uncertain whether the contract will or will not be performed, and the character in which the parties stand to one another remains in suspense as long as the contract is in fieri. But when the contract is performed by actual conveyance, or performed in everything but the mere formal act of sealing the engrossed deeds, then that completion relates back to the contract, and it is thereby ascertained that the relation was throughout that of trustee and cestui que