184 Iowa 518 | Iowa | 1918
Conditions in this country are not now, if ever they were, such as prevailed in England when the rule was built up that words like “heirs” or “heirs of his body” must be given a strict construction, and cannot be held to be the equivalent of “children,” or to be merely a description of a class whom the testator desired to inherit from him. When this rule of strict construction was built up and adhered to, such terms were not equivalent to “children,” because, unlike here, all a man’s children were not his heirs, because usually, only one of them was. This alone would tend to differentiate the attitude of the American courts from those courts which built said rule. And the American authorities overwhelmingly make a departure from the strict construction of the English courts. It may be fairly said to be the consensus of the great weight of American authority that, since one’s children are always his heirs at law, that a devise or gift to “my heir,” followed by a naming of the child who is of necessity an heir, should never be construed to mean that the devise shall not become vested
These donors sold their land, and were never paid the purchase price. They did not desire it to be paid to them. Instead, they directed the purchaser to pay a part of it to Jessie M. Rundel. He was to pay after the donors were dead. This indicates a desire that payment should not be made until after the givers had deceased, but it indicates no concern as to what the status of the donee might be when payment became due. Appellee urges there was a desire to keep the husband of. Jessie from getting this money, under mutual wills. Nothing in the record shows the par: ents had any knowledge that such wills existed. It is further said there was a natural feeling against giving anything to one not a blood relative. The only evidence on that point is that the parents desired the share of the son to go to his wife, if she survived him. Nor should we assume the parents foresaw the daughter, a woman of 26,
But a truce to abstraction. Under our own decisions, this was a gift completed in the lifetime of the donor, with nothing but enjoyment postponed. On the day it was made, Jessie was their child, and they named her as .a beneficiary. They used the word “heir” in addition, but that was purely descriptive matter. While, in strictness, the living parents had no heirs, in the popular acceptation of the term by laymen, Jessie was, at that time, not only their child, but their heir. They said to the son who had purchased the farm, “Pay Jessie, who is our heir, but do not let her have the money until after we have both died.” In the latest expression of this court on the point (Meyer v. Stortenbecker, 184 Iowa 441), this court held, upon essential facts quite similar to the ones at bar, that what was done in this case was a contract made for the benefit of the children of the seller; that these children obtained complete title eo mstanti; and that nothing was postponed except the enjoyment of the gift. The writer filed a dissent in that case. It was his view that one reason why title did not vest was that
We are constrained to hold that the demurrer of the defendant Matter should be overruled, and that if, on retrial, there shall be proved what the demurrer admits, said defendant should pay to the appellant executor the sum named in the agreement, with interest, as therein provided. —Reversed and remanded.