ABSTRACT
Where an action is brought on a deed, the parties to the deed and those claiming through them, such as successors in title, are estopped from denying the truth of the facts stated in the deed. An early example of the application of this rule is Bowman v Taylor.62 The plaintiff claimed as patentee the rent under a licence to use certain looms for weaving, called ‘power looms’, which had been granted to the defendants. The licence had been granted by a deed, which recited that the plaintiff had invented power looms, for which he had obtained a patent. The defendants by their plea denied, amongst other things, that the plaintiff was the inventor, or that the power loom was a new invention. The plaintiff alleged that those pleas were bad, because the defendants were estopped by the recitals in the deed to which they were parties. The Court of King’s Bench held that where a person has entered into a deed, by which, in express terms, he has admitted certain facts to exist, he is estopped from afterwards disputing those facts. The recitals were so bound up in the deed that they were essentially part of the deed itself. Accordingly, the defendants were estopped from denying either that the power loom was a new invention, or that the plaintiff was its inventor.
