Bradshaw v. Stansberry

• Decision Date: 17 September 1913
• Parties: BRADSHAW et al. v. STANSBERRY.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

79 S.E. 302

164 N.C. 356

BRADSHAW et al. v. STANSBERRY.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 17, 1913

Appeal from Superior Court, Halifax County; Lane, Judge.

Action by Ellen G. Bradshaw and others against Cynthia Stansberry. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiffs appeal. Dismissed.

Where a husband conveyed land to his wife for life, and at her death to their surviving children, their heirs and assigns forever the term "surviving children" meant children living at the death of the life tenant and not grandchildren.

In 1874 Wm. E. Webb and Annie E. Webb, his wife, executed a deed for a certain tract of land to the three children which they then had, Felix, Richard, and Cynthia, reserving to themselves a life estate therein. On the same day Wm. E. Webb executed to his wife a deed to another tract containing 250 acres conveying the same to "her sole use and benefit during her natural life, and at her death to the surviving children of the said Wm. E. and Annie E. Webb, their heirs and assigns forever." This was all the land which they then or ever afterwards owned, and these deeds were intended in the nature of a will. After their execution another child was born named Effie M. Webb. All four of the children survived Wm E., but after his death, and before the death of his widow, Felix and Richard died intestate without issue, and Effie M., the after-born child, died intestate, leaving the plaintiff, Ellen G. Bradshaw; the controversy being whether Ellen G. Bradshaw, the grandchild, takes anything under the second deed, or whether the whole tract goes to the defendant, Cynthia Stansberry, as the only child who outlived the widow.

E. L. Travis, of Halifax, and J. M. Picot, of Littleton, for appellants.

Jos. P. Pippen, of Littleton, R. C. Dunn, of Enfield, and Elliott Clark, of Halifax, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The motion of the appellee to dismiss the appeal for failure to print the record and briefs in accordance with the rules of this court is allowed. The number of appeals has been increasing year by year under conditions heretofore existing and with the additional facilities for trials in the superior courts, brought about by four new judicial districts, we may reasonably expect a further increase of from 15 to 20 per cent. It is therefore necessary to have rules of procedure and to adhere to them, and, if we relax them in favor of one, we might as well abolish them.

We have,...