EA INTENTIONE

Definition

A Latin maxim meaning "with that intent." The phrase was used historically in conveyancing and property law to describe language in a grant or devise that expressed a purpose or intention accompanying a transfer — but without creating a binding legal condition. Courts applying this principle held that words of intent attached to a conveyance did not give rise to a condition subsequent or a conditional limitation; instead, they created at most a confidence or trust, leaving the estate to vest without defeasance if the stated intention went unfulfilled. The practical distinction is significant: a condition operates on the title itself and, if breached, may cause forfeiture or reverter; a confidence or trust imposed personal obligations but did not imperil the grantee's title. Language glossed as ea intentione fell into the latter category.

Common Confusion

The phrase is easily conflated with conditional language such as "on condition that" or "provided that," which do trigger defeasible estates. The functional difference is that ea intentione language expresses the grantor's motive or hope, not a promise extracted from the grantee. Researchers encountering either form in historical instruments must read the surrounding words carefully — courts looked to the whole instrument to determine whether defeasance was truly intended, and the same transaction could be characterized differently depending on the jurisdiction and era.

Why It Matters in Research

This term appears almost exclusively in pre-twentieth century sources and is rare in modern case law. Researchers working with colonial-era deeds, early English conveyances, or equity proceedings in chancery are most likely to encounter it. The key research trap is treating the phrase as synonymous with a condition when courts consistently refused to do so. The Dyer report cited in the historical dictionaries (Dyer 138b) is the anchor authority, and researchers reconstructing the doctrine should trace how English chancery and common law courts distinguished intent language from conditional language over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. American courts, particularly in equity matters involving charitable devises or family settlements, occasionally applied analogous reasoning without using the Latin phrase — so corpus searches limited to the exact term will undercount relevant authority. When researching instruments that include ea intentione or functionally equivalent intent language, the connected doctrines to examine are the cy-pres doctrine (where charitable intent controls application of a trust), the precatory trust line of cases (where words of wish or hope were debated as mandatory or merely aspirational), and the law of conditions versus covenants in real property. All three bodies of doctrine circle the same underlying problem this phrase addresses.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in agreement on the core proposition: ea intentione means "with that intent" and was held not to create a condition but a confidence and trust. All three sources cite Dyer 138b as authority, and all three immediately follow the entry with the related maxim regarding vendor commendation — suggesting the dictionaries treated these phrases as a cluster of related maxims rather than independent entries of significant weight. What the historical dictionaries do not supply is any developed analysis of the doctrine. The entries are glossary-level, sufficient to translate the phrase and identify the leading citation, but they provide no guidance on how courts distinguished intent language from conditional language in practice, how the principle mapped onto equity doctrine, or how it fared in American jurisdictions. Burrill's entry is substantively identical to Black's, which is consistent with the pattern of Latin maxim entries across these sources. Researchers should not treat the dictionary entries as a substitute for examining the underlying Dyer report and the chancery authorities that developed the confidence-versus-condition distinction.

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