[1]: 190–1 The 1366 application of the rule in common law closely followed Occam's razor, William of Ockham's articulation of the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied without necessity."
The eponymous litigation was brought about because of a settlement made by Sir William Shelley (1480–1549), an English judge, on an estate he purchased when Sion Monastery was dissolved.
The decision was rendered by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Bromley, who presided over an assembly of all the judges[a] on the King's Bench to hear the case during Easter term 1580–81.
Absent an intervening vested future interest, the life estate and the remainder will merge and the conveyance gives that person the land in fee simple absolute (full ownership without restriction).
Some scholars, such as John V. Orth, believe that this explanation (to promote the right to transfer the land) of the origin of the rule is inaccurate.
In their view, the rule originated as the courts' response to an estate-planning technique in the 14th century, long before the litigation in Shelley's Case.
The courts could not abide such a transparent attempt to circumvent the tax system, and the rule was invented to deal with this problem by converting these transfers into fees simple absolute so as to allow the relief to be collected upon the grantee's death.
Later, when the relief was abolished, the rule continued to survive in the common law due to inertia ("it is the genius of the common law to add, but not to subtract"[attribution needed]), the "promote the right to transfer the land" explanation was concocted to explain the continued existence of the rule.