Coogan v. Jones

• Decision Date: 19 April 1917
• Docket Number: No. 11136.,11136.
• Citation: 278 Ill. 279,115 N.E. 877
• Parties: COOGAN et al. v. JONES et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

278 Ill. 279

115 N.E. 877

COOGAN et al.

v.JONES et al.

No. 11136.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 19, 1917.

Error to Circuit Court, Vermilion County; Augustus A. Partlow, Judge.

Bill by Nettie Coogan and others against Emma Jones and others. To review a decree dismissing the bill, plaintiffs bring error. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

Carter, J., dissenting.Walter T. Gunn, of Danville (W. B. Cooney, of Pekin, of counsel), for plaintiffs in error.

O. M. Jones, of Danville, for defendants in error.

DUNCAN, J.

Plaintiffs in error filed their bill in the circuit court of Vermilion county for the partition of 37 acres of land situated in said county. Defendants in error answered the bill, and a replication was filed to the answer. The master in chancery to whom the cause was referred for proof and findings made a report on the evidence taken before him, and recommended that the bill be dismissed for want of equity, at the costs of plaintiffs in error. On the hearing upon exceptions properly preserved the court sustained the report of the master in chancery and entered a decree accordingly, and this writ of error is prosecuted to review the court's decree.

On October 20, 1881, Charles Gones, then owner in fee of said premises, and his wife, Mary, conveyed by warranty deed the said lands to his daughter, Hannah F. Hodges. The parts of said deed material to this consideration are the granting clause and a reservation and an habendum clause, which read as follows:

‘The grantors, Charles Gones and Mary J. Gones, his wife, of Catlin, in the county of Vermilion and state of Illinois, for and in consideration of valuable consideration and one dollar in hand paid, convey and warrant to Hannah F. Hodges and her bodily heirs, of _____, county of Vermilion, state of Illinois, the following described real estate, to wit: The west half of the east half of the southwest quarter of section twenty-seven (27), town nineteen (19), range twelve (12), west, excepting three (3) acres off the north end of said tract of land, and also subject to a coal lease given to J. D. Payne and Wm. Henderson. Provided the said Charles Gones holds the right of possession, management and control and profits of the products derived from the above described tract of land during his natural lifetime, and at his death, then the above described tract of land to go into full ownership and control of the said Hannah F. Hodges or her heirs, situated in the county of Vermilion and state of Illinois.’

At the date of the delivery of the said deed Hannah F. Hodges had three children living. Thereafter six other children were born to her, and the nine children are plaintiffs in error, and are the only children and the only heirs of the body of said Hannah F. Hodges, who died in 1913. Charles Gones died prior to the year 1884, and the coal lease mentioned in the deed has terminated. On April 12, 1884, Hannah F. Hodges and her husband, Milton N. Hodges, conveyed a portion of said premises to William A. Hodges. Arthur Jones received a conveyance of the same tract conveyed to William A. Hodges, November 14, 1892, and Arthur Jones' title to said tract is completely connected by mesne conveyances from William A. Hodges to various grantees, including Mary R. Boyer and her husband, James, who conveyed directly to Arthur Jones. On January 2, 1888, Hannah F. Hodges and her husband, Milton N. Hodges, by warranty deed conveyed the remainder of said premises to Arthur Jones. Arthur Jones paid the full market value for the said premises at the time he purchased them, and died intestate in 1914, leaving him surviving his wife, Emma Jones, and three children as his only heirs at law, and who are the defendants in error.

Defendants in error contend that the deed to Hannah F. Hodges from her father conveyed to her an estate in fee simple, subject to the life estate of her father. On the other hand, plaintiffs in error insist that by said deed she only took a life estate, and that plaintiffs in error, as her bodily heirs, by said deed took the remainder in fee simple. Both parties agree that whatever estate was conveyed to her was subject to a life estate in her father and to the said coal lease, and that her title vested immediately on the delivery of the deed. Such was undoubtedly the effect of the deed under the holdings of this court. Shackelton v. Sebree, 86 Ill. 616;White v. Willard, 232 Ill. 464, 83 N. E. 954;Hathaway v. Cook, 258 Ill. 92, 101 N. E. 227.

‘A conditional fee, at common law, was a fee restrained to some particular heirs exclusive of others, * * * as to the heirs of a man's body, by which only his lineal descendants were admitted in exclusion of collateral heirs, or to the heirs male of his body, in exclusion both of collaterals and lineal females also. It was called a conditional fee by reason of the condition expressed or implied in the donation of it, that if the donee died without such particular heirs the land should revert to the donor.’ 2 Blackstone's Com. 110. After the statute of Westminster the Second, commonly called the statute de donis conditionalibus, was passed in England it was ruled by the judges that the donee no longer had a fee simple conditional. Under that statute they divided the estate into two parts, leaving in the donee a new kind of a particular estate, which they denominated a fee tail, and investing in the donor the ultimate fee simple of the land expectant on failure of issue, called a reversion. 2 Blackstone's Com. 112. Such an estate since the statute de donis has been known as an estate tail general, where the lands and tenements are conveyed to one and the heirs of his body begotten. 2 Blackstone's Com. 113. Formerly the word ‘heirs' was necessary in all grants or donations by deed in order to make a fee or an estate of inheritance. The highest estate that a man could have was an estate in fee simple, and such an estate was usually and customarily conveyed by an expression in the deed that the grant or gift was to the grantee or donee (naming him) and to his heirs forever, or to him and to his heirs absolutely, or to him and his heirs and assings forever. The word ‘heirs' was also necessary to create a fee tail, and the word ‘body,’ or some other words of procreation, were necessary to make a fee tail and to ascertain to what heirs in particular the fee was limited. The words commonly employed in the granting clause of a deed conveyinga fee tail are words showing a grant to the grantee ‘and the heirs of his body begotten,’ or to him and the ‘heirs of his body,’ where the estate granted is an estate tail general. If the deed has an habendum clause, that clause usually reads, ‘to have and to hold to him and the heirs of his body begotten,’ etc.

There can be no question that a deed containing a granting clause and an habendum clause of the character just described, under our law conveys a fee tail under the statute de donis and not an estate in fee simple, but under our present statute in relation to conveyances (Hurd's Rev. St. 1915-16, c. 30, § 6) the grantee in such conveyance will take an estate for life with remainder in fee to the heirs of his body, leaving a reversion, in case of an entire failure of issue to the grantee, in the heirs at law of the grantor. There is no difference, in the effect of a deed, between a grant to one ‘and the heirs of his body begotten’ and to one and ‘his bodily heirs.’ In the case of Blair v. Van Blarcum, 71 Ill. 290, the language used in the will was ‘unto Mary Gamble and to the heirs of her body and to their heirs and assigns,’ and this court held that the words employed in that case fall within the requirements of the law creating an estate tail general. In the case of Kyner v. Boll, 182 Ill. 171, 54 N. E. 925, the language of the deed was ‘to Jennie Kyner, bodily heirs and assigns,’ and this court there held that under the statute de donis an estate in fee tail general was created, and that under our present statute Jennie Kyner only took a life estate, remainder in fee to the heirs of her body. Similar holdings were made by this court in Frazer v. Peoria County, 74 Ill. 282, and Lewis v. Pleasants, 143...