56 Neb. 392 | Neb. | 1898
In the petition of Victoria Hall filed in the district court of York county she alleged that she and her sister, Dora Lyon, were the daughters and sole heirs at law of Lorina McCully, who died intestate in January, 1877; that said Lorina McCully, during her lifetime, Avas the holder of a certain executory contract for the purchase of a forty-acre tract from a railroad company, which tract was particularly described and. was in York county; that on said contract she had .made four payments; that on December 3, 1883, all remaining payments having been made as required, this tract was conveyed to the “heirs at law” of Lorina McCully by that general designation; that on July 6, 1893, an execution was levied on
On the trial the facts were shown to be substantially as described in the petition. It will be seen upon an analysis of the above statements that when Lorina Mc-Cully died she was the holder of a contract whereby the railroad company had agreed to convey certain real property to her; that she had made payments thereon which gave her an equitable interest in said land; that afterwards, the other payments having been made, the railroad company conveyed to the heirs at law of Lorina McCully, and that, by purchase at sheriff’s sale, Crabb claims to have acquired an estate of curtesy for the life of John W. McCully in said forty-acre tract. The death of Lorina McCully was in 1877, and to the statute in force at that time we must resort to find what estate of curtesy, if any, John W. McCully had in land in which his wife had a mere equitable interest or title. The statute in force was embodied in section 29, chapter 23, Compiled Statutes 1885, from which we quote this language: “When any man and his wife shall be seized in her right of any estate of inheritance in lands, the husband shall, on the death of his wife, hold the lands for his life, as tenant thereof by curtesy; Provided,” etc. The right of the husband to curtesy in 1877 therefore depended upon the force to be given the words “estate of
Affirmed.