Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Hoppin

Decision Date06 April 1911
Citation94 N.E. 669,249 Ill. 406
PartiesAETNA LIFE INS. CO. et al. v. HOPPIN et al.
CourtIllinois Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; James C. McBride, Judge.

Action by the AEtna Life Insurance Company and others against Franklin M. Hoppin and others. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants appeal. Reversed and remanded.Lane & Cooper, for appellants.

Oliver J. Bailey and William Abbott, for appellees.

DUNN, J.

This was an action of ejectment, in which the plaintiffs recovered a judgment in the circuit court of Montgomery county, from which the defendants appealed. Both parties claim under the same deed, the appellants as grantees, the appellees under an execution sale and deed based upon a judgment against the appellants. The deed was executed on August 27, 1862, by Franklin Fassett, who was then the owner of the land, and granted the premises to Franklin B. Hoppin and Sarah Hoppin, his wife, for and during their natural lives and for and during the life of the survivor of them, and at the death of the survivor of them to the heirs of the body of the said Sarah Hoppin, their heirs and assigns.’ The habendum was identical with the grant. The appellants are the son and daughter of Franklin B. Hoppin and Sarah Hoppin-the only children Sarah Hoppin ever had-and were living when the deed was made. Sarah Hoppin conveyed her life estate in 1869, the judgment under which the appellees claim was recovered in 1874, and the deed executed under the sale was made in 1877. Sarah Hoppin died in 1908. The estate for the life of Sarah Hoppin was conveyed to the appellant Sarah E. Garland in 1899, and the appellants were in possession under that title thereafter until this action was commenced, in March, 1909.

The only question in the case is whether the remainder limited to the heirs of the body of Sarah Hoppin was contingent or vested at the time of the execution sale. If it was vested, the title passed by the sale; but, if it was contingent, it was not an estate which could be sold on execution, and the purchaser acquired no title. Ducker v. Burnham, 146 Ill. 9, 34 N. E. 558,37 Am. St. Rep. 135;Haward v. Peavey, 128 Ill. 430, 21 N. E. 503,15 Am. St. Rep. 120;Baker v. Copenbarger, 15 Ill. 103, 58 Am. Dec. 600.

The appellees have cited section 6 of the conveyance act (Hurd's Rev. St. 1909, c. 30) as decisive of this case. This section abolishes estates tail, and with them the rule in Shelley's Case as applied to such estates. Baker v. Scott, 62 Ill. 86;Butler v. Huestis, 68 Ill. 594, 18 Am. Rep. 589. That rule applies in this state only to fees simple. Under the operation of the rule where in force as to estates tail, a conveyance to one for life with remainder to the heirs of his body is the same as a conveyance to one and the heirs of his body, and the first taker has an estate tail, which is an estate of inheritance. In this state, however, where the rule is not in force as to estates tail, the conveyance operates according to its terms, and the first taker has a life estate only. Section 6 has no application to this case, because it refers only to cases where, by the common law, any person or persons might hereafter become seised in fee tail,’ etc., and this is not such a case. The grant here is of a life estate, and the remainder is not granted to the heirs of the life tenant either in fee tail or fee simple. It is not in fee simple, because it is not granted to the general heirs, but to a restricted class. It is not in fee tail, because the heirs to whom the estate is restricted take in fee simple. The construction of the deed is not affected either by the rule in Shelley's Case or section 6 of the conveyance act. The words ‘heirs of the body,’ as used in the deed, are not words of limitation denoting the extent and character of the estate granted to the first taker, but are words of purchase, descriptive of the persons who are to take the remainder upon the termination of the life estate.

When used as words of limitation, the words ‘heirs of the body’ indicate all those persons who, upon the death of the immediate ancestor, succeed to the estate from generation to generation. If the words are so limited as not to include the whole line of inheritable succession, but only to designate the individuals who are, upon the death of the ancestor, to succeed to the estate and who are themselves to constitute the source of future descent, they are words of purchase. In discussing the rule in Shelley's Case it is said in 1 Preston on Estates, 282: ‘That all possible heirs of the given description are to take in succession from generation to generation under the name of heirs of the ancestor is to bring the case immediately within the rule. That only one individual or several individuals is or are to take in the character of heirs, or, rather, as particular persons described by that name, either for their lives, only, or for an estate of inheritance to be deduced from them as the stock or ancestor, and that their heirs are described by superadded words of limitation and as their descendants, is to exclude the rule.’ The same principle is stated in Fearne on Contingent Remainders, 189, in Butler's note to Coke upon Littleton, 377a, and in Hargrave's Law Tracts, 574-576.

The rule is that where to the word ‘heirs' are added words limiting its meaning to one or more persons who are to take and constitute a new source of inheritance or stock of descent-that is, when the words used designate the remaindermen to take after the expiration of the life estate as the person or persons who at that time answer the description of heirs and limit the estate in remainder to such persons and their heirs-the rule in Shelley's Case does not apply, but the estate subsequent to the life estate takes effect as a contingent remainder to the heirs of the life tenant, as purchasers. Archer's Case, 1 Coke, 65; Evans v. Evans, 2 Ch. (1892) 173; De Vaughn v. Hutchinson, 165 U. S. 566, 17 Sup. Ct. 461, 41 L. Ed. 827;De Vaughn v. De Vaughn, 3 App. D. C. 50;Taylor v. Cleary, 29 Grat. (Va.) 448;Peer v. Hennion, 77 N. J. Law, 693, 76 Atl. 1084; Tucker v. Adams, 14 Ga. 548; Stephenson v. Hagan, 15 B. Mon. (Ky.) 282;Jarvis v. Wyatt, 11 N. C. 227. Applying the principle in this case, it is manifest that the words ‘heirs of the body’ are words of purchase. They are limited by the words ‘their heirs and assigns.’ So limited they do not indicate descendants of the life tenant who are to take in succession from generation to generation, but only the individuals who may be her heirs at her decease, and who themselves become the ancestors from whom the succession is to be derived, and from whom an estate in fee simple will descend.

It is a general rule that a conveyance of a present estate to the heirs or heirs of the body of a living person is void for uncertainty, because those who will take as heirs cannot be known until the person's death. Hall v. Leonard, 1 Pick. (Mass.) 27;Morris v. Stephens, 46 Pa. 200;Winslow v. Winslow, 52 Ind. 8; Butler v. Huestis, supra. It is a well-settled rule of construction that technical words are presumed to be used technically unless the contrary appears upon the face of the instrument, and that words of a definite legal signification are to be understood as used in their definite legal sense. The word ‘heirs' is a technical word having a definite legal signification, and, when unexplained and uncontrolled by the context, must be interpreted, according to its technical import, as designating the person appointed by law to succeed to the real estate in case of intestacy. Heirs of the body are a limited class of heirs, restricted to lineal descendants. Future estates, unlike present interests, may be limited to persons who are not ascertained or who are not even in existence,...

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    ...Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1949, chap. 30, par. 5), the import of their use in deeds of conveyance has not changed. In AEtna Life Ins. Co. v. Hoppin, 249 Ill. 406, 94 N.E. 669, 671, we said: 'The word 'heirs' is a technical word having a definite legal signification, and, when unexplained and uncont......
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    ...remainders created in the deed to Henrietta Ann and Gustav Briegel were contingent remainders with a double aspect. AEtna Life Ins. Co. v. Hoppin, 249 Ill. 406, 94 N. E. 669;Farmer v. Reed, 335 Ill. 156, 166 N. E. 498. Where a grant is of a life estate with contingent remainder or remainder......
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    ...effect: DuBois v. Judy, 291 Ill. 340-347, 126 N. E. 104; Walcott v. Robinson, 214 Mass. 172-178, 100 N. E. 1109; Ætna Life Ins. Co. v. Hoppin, 249 Ill. 406-412, 94 N. E. 669; Ætna Life Ins. Co. v. Hoppin, 214 F. 928-933, 131 C. C. A. 224; Baxter v. Bickford, 201 Mass. 495-496, 88 N. E. 7; C......
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