Definition
A phrase used in conveyancing and contract drafting to establish a standard of quality or sufficiency in performance, title, or obligation. When a vendor binds themselves to provide a deed or title "as good as" a specified standard, courts interpret this as a substantive warranty obligation — not merely a comparative aspiration. The phrase signals that the obligor must meet or match a defined benchmark, and failure to do so constitutes a breach of the underlying covenant.
In the specific context of title bonds and deed covenants, "as good as" language has been construed to impose a general warranty of title, meaning the vendor must deliver marketable title and defend it against all claims, not merely make a good-faith effort to do so.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "almost, virtually, practically; tantamount to" — as in "it's as good as done."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Equivalent in quality or degree; not materially different from.
The gap between common and legal meaning is consequential. In ordinary speech, "as good as" often signals approximation — something nearly but not quite complete. In legal drafting, particularly in conveyancing, courts have refused to read this approximation into the phrase. A covenant to provide a deed "as good as can be had" is a commitment to full performance, not substantial performance. Researchers treating the phrase as merely rhetorical will misread the legal obligation it creates.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in older conveyancing instruments, title bonds, and deed covenants — sources concentrated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Researchers working with historical land records, chain-of-title disputes, or warranty deed litigation should treat the phrase as a term of art rather than an idiom.
The key interpretive trap is the ordinary-language reading of approximation. Courts have consistently rejected the argument that "as good as" merely requires reasonable or comparable performance. The Kentucky authority cited in Bouvier's treated the phrase as imposing a general warranty obligation, which carries significant downstream consequences: the vendor is liable not only for defects they caused but for title failures that arise from any source.
For corpus researchers, this term connects to the broader cluster of conveyancing quality covenants, including warranty deed language, covenant of seisin, and covenant of quiet enjoyment. It also appears in bond instruments outside the land context — supply contracts and construction agreements occasionally use "as good as" language to define acceptable tender of performance.
Bouvier's provides only a single case reference and no treatise synthesis, so the historical record in this dictionary is thin. Researchers should treat Bouvier's entry as a signpost to the case, not as a comprehensive statement of doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the sole source in the Law Mind historical corpus with a dedicated entry for this phrase. Bouvier's frames the term narrowly: it reports that a title bond binding vendors "to have as good a deed as can be had" imports both an obligation to make good title and a general warranty. The entry is more a case digest note than a doctrinal treatment.
What Bouvier's does not address is whether the phrase operates identically across contract types outside the conveyancing context, or whether it carries the same force in executory agreements as in executed instruments. Researchers should not extrapolate from the title-bond context without independent verification. The historical dictionaries provide no counterweight or dissenting interpretation — the phrase simply did not generate enough doctrinal controversy to produce competing treatments.
Jurisdictional Note
The Kentucky precedent cited in Bouvier's is the most documented judicial treatment in the historical corpus, but the interpretive principle — that "as good as" language in a title bond imports a general warranty — has broad common law roots and is not unique to Kentucky. Researchers working in other jurisdictions should treat the principle as a starting point subject to local verification, particularly in states with statutory definitions of warranty deed covenants.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing in Employment (The Law Mind Employment & Labor Law Encyclopedia) — tangentially relevant where "as good as" quality language appears in employment contracts defining acceptable performance standards, though the core doctrine addressed in that entry is distinct from conveyancing warranty obligations.