Guthmann v. Vallery

• Decision Date: 03 June 1897
• Docket Number: 8487
• Citation: 71 N.W. 734,51 Neb. 824
• Parties: MINNIE E. GUTHMANN v. JACOB VALLERY, SR
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

71 N.W. 734

51 Neb. 824

MINNIE E. GUTHMANN v. JACOB VALLERY, SR

No. 8487

Supreme Court of Nebraska

June 3, 1897

ERROR from the district court of Cass county. Tried below before CHAPMAN, J. Affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

H. D Travis, for plaintiff in error.

Matthew Gering, contra.

OPINION

RAGAN, C.

Charles Guthmann was seized in fee of certain real estate situate in Cass county. He devised the same by his will to his daughter Minnie E. Guthmann, subject to a life estate therein in favor of his wife, Mary J. Guthmann, and died. His widow took possession of the real estate and leased it from March 1 1893, to March 1, 1894, at an agreed rental of $ 150, and for such rent accepted the tenant's note due March 1, 1894, and on the 27th of July, 1893, the tenant for life died. Jacob Vallery, Sr., was appointed administrator of the estate of the life tenant and after the rent note matured he collected the same. The tenant of the tenant for life remained in possession of the premises until the expiration of the lease executed between said parties. The record does not show that this tenant remained in possession after the death of the tenant for life with the consent of the owner of the reversion, nor that the reversioner objected to the possession retained by such tenant. Minnie E. Guthmann, the owner of the reversion, sued Jacob Vallery, Sr., in the district court of Cass county to recover the rent of the premises from the death of the life tenant until the expiration of the lease made by her as fixed by the lease between the tenant and the life tenant. The trial resulted in a judgment dismissing Miss Guthmann's action, and she brings that judgment here for review on error.

One cannot convey to another a greater interest in real estate than he is himself possessed of, and the lease of the real estate made by the widow terminated at her death. Upon the termination of the life estate the tenant in possession became a tenant at sufferance, and he might then have abandoned possession of the premises, as he was under no obligation to occupy as the tenant of the reversioner; and probably, although we do not decide the point, had he abandoned the premises, he would have been discharged from any liability for rent even to the administrator of the life tenant. (Hoagland v. Crum 113 Ill. 365; 2 Blackstone's Commentaries, sec. 124.) On the termination of the life estate the reversioner became at once entitled to the possession of the real estate; and, it seems, that the life tenant's tenant in possession would not have been entitled to a notice to quit the premises or demand for the possession thereof from the owner of the reversion in order to enable the latter to maintain an action for possession. This is because the tenant,...