19 S.E. 255 | Va. | 1894
delivered the opinion of the court. •
This is an appeal from a final decree of the circuit court
The last will of Mrs. Lucy H. Law, referred to in the foregoing decree, was presented in court, and admitted to probate, March 12, 1890, and isas follows : “I, Lucy H. Law,, for my last wishes, give everything of which I die possessed to my beloved husband, Benjamin H. Law. I have been indebted to him during our married life for a comfortable support, and there is not enough left to indemnify him for all that he has expended in my behalf. Therefore, all that remains is justly his, and I desire that he shall have everything of every kind that I leave behind, without exception. As witness my hand and seal this 10 th day of February, 1886. Lucy H. Law.” The bill avers that the appellants are the children of B,ev. John S. Hansbrough, to whom the said Bleak House tract of land was devised in remainder after the life estate given to Mrs. Lucy H. Law —in default of her leaving children or issue living at the termination of her life estate — by the will of Mrs. Elizabeth T. Strother, deceased, and prays for the delivery to them of the possession of the said tract of 82 acres of land withheld from them by the said Benjamin Law since the death of his wife, Lucy H. Law ; and prays for an account and decree for use and occupation of the said tract of land from the date of the death of the said Lucy H. Law. The bill
We are of opinion that, under the will of Mrs. Elizabeth T. Strother, Mrs. Lucy H. Law took only a life estate in the said Bleak House tract of land, and that, having died leaving no issue living at her death, the remainder, in fee simple, vested in the children of the said John S. Hansbrough — the appellants — immediately upon the termination of the said life estate ; and they were entitled to the possession of the said tract of land at the death of the said Lucy'H. Law, the life tenant. The will embodies, and explicitly expresses, the intention of the testatrix to provide for her niece, Mrs. Law, a comfortable support, during her life, out of the usufruct of the land, and, by an express limitation over, to give the land, in absolute fee simple, to the children of the Reverend John S. Ilansbrough, “if she dies without issue living at her death.” That the testatrix meant to provide a life usufruct, only, in the land, for Mrs. Lucy H. Law, is manifest in the wide discrimination which she makes between the real estate and the personalty: ‘ £I will, bequeath, and devise to William Skeen; in trust, the tract of land on which I reside, known as the ‘Bleak House,5 and all my personal property, of every kind and description, not specifically disposed of otherwise, to hold for the benefit of my niece, Lucy H. Law, as fol
The manifest intention of Mrs. Strother’s will, and express terms of the will, provide only a comfortable support, for life, for Mrs. Law, out of the land devised to William Skeen, trustee, and give a remainder over, in fee, to the children of the Reverend John S. Hansbrough, in the event of Mrs. Law’s dying without issue living at her death. Here are two well-defined purposes in the mind and will of the testatrix, which are not in conflict with each other, nor with any rule of law; and, even had the limitation over to the children of Rev. J. S. Hansbrough not been made, there is an express limitation over, in fee, to any children whom Mrs. Law might leave at her death.
For the foregoing reasons, we are opinion that the decree