Jones v. Stokes

• Decision Date: 06 June 1912
• Citation: 60 So. 280,179 Ala. 579
• Parties: JONES v. STOKES ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

60 So. 280

179 Ala. 579

JONES v. STOKES ET AL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 6, 1912

Rehearing Denied Dec. 17, 1912.

Appeal from City Court of Selma; J. W. Mabry, Judge.

Action by Matilda Stokes and others against E. C. Jones. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

Keith &amp Wilkinson, of Selma, for appellant.

Partridge & Hobbs and A. M. Pitts, all of Selma, for appellees.

SAYRE J.

Statutory action of ejectment by appellees against appellant. Plaintiffs in the court below claimed as children and heirs at law of Anthony Watson. Defendant claimed under a deed from Anthony Watson's widow, since deceased. The question was whether the widow had a fee which went by her conveyance or a life estate only. The facts necessary to be taken into account are these: The small parcel of land in suit, a lot less than an acre in area situate in the city of Selma, was owned and occupied by Watson as a home place until his death in 1893. He left a widow and seven children, all then of full age. The widow continued to occupy the home place until her death, which occurred shortly before this suit was brought and in 1902, by formal proceedings in the probate court of Dallas county, the lot was set apart to her as her exempt homestead. This tract was worth $1,400. It appears now without conflict, and it so appeared in the report of the commissioners appointed by the probate court to set apart the homestead, that Watson owned at the time of his death a lot in the town of Greensboro, Hale county, in this state containing seven acres, and worth $300. There was never any administration upon Watson's estate, but that fact is not considered to have any bearing upon the conclusion to be reached. Appellees contend, and the trial court so held, that on these facts the act of December 13, 1892 (Acts, p. 138), operated to vest in the widow a life estate only.

In Tartt v. Negus, 127 Ala. 301, 28 So. 713, this same general question arose in respect to the title to a lot in the city of Mobile, but there were some differences which must be noted. There is no indication in the report of the case that the deceased owned a tract separate from his homestead. In that case, too, the owner had died in September, 1898, after the Code of 1896 had gone into effect. The court said that the widow's deed was sufficient to pass the fee "which the statute vested in her, if there was no other real estate left, or her life interest if there was other land. In either case the plaintiffs [heirs at law of the deceased owner] would have no present right to dispossess the widow's alienee," the widow being still alive. It is entirely clear that the court had in mind the language of section 2071 of the Code which is quoted in the opinion.

In Newell v. Johns, 128 Ala. 584, 29 So. 609, there was a contest between the widow and the administrator who had petitioned the court for a sale of land for the payment of debts. The original owner had died in 1895, but the proceeding was commenced subsequent to the time when the Code of 1896 went into effect (February 17, 1898), and reached this court in 1900. The court said: "In case the decedent left no real estate in excess of that exempt by law from the payment of debts, the person for whose benefit the exemption is created may, under the provision first contained in the act of December 13, 1892, now in sections 2071 and 2100 of the Code, become invested with the full legal title so far as it resided in the decedent by procuring an order of the probate court declaring the property exempt. See Brooks v. Johns, 119 Ala. 412 . But such proceeding is in no way essential to the establishment or maintenance of the mere right of exemption which shields the homestead from the decedent's debts. That right exists independent of the provision made for the ultimate disposition of title."

In Carroll v. Draughon, 154 Ala. 430, 45 So. 919, the original owner died in 1894. The case was decided in this court February 13, 1908. One question was whether the complainant, the surviving second husband of the deceased widow (exemptioner), took any interest in the homestead. The court said: "There is lack of averment in the bill that the lands set apart as the homestead constituted all the real estate owned in this state by the deceased husband at the time of his death, or that the homestead was at the time less in value than the amount exempted by law. Consequently the bill fails to make a case in which the absolute estate vested in the widow under either section 2071, 2077, or 2100 of the Code of 1896. Brooks v. Johns, 119 Ala. 412 . Construing the averments of the bill most strongly against the complainant, his wife took only a life estate in the homestead, and her deed to him conveyed only that interest, and of consequence his interest ceased upon her death."

In Hosea v. Davis, 142 Ala. 211, 39 So. 315, the court seems to have assumed that section 2071 of the Code of 1896 and the act of December 13, 1892, were identical in operation and effect. But they were not so identical, nor could any assumption or decision make them so.

We have stated the cases upon which the appellees rely as sustaining their recovery in the court below. It has been thus made to appear that none of them decide the precise question here involved, and that their language, where they have seemed to give support to appellees' contention, was held with reference to section 2071 of the Code of 1896, and without any purpose of determining whether that so-called codification of the act of December 13, 1892, effected any change in the act. There is no contention that the estate of Watson was insolvent, and it is conceded that, if his death had occurred prior to the date of the act, his widow would have taken a life estate only. The language of section 2071 of the Code of 1896 was: "When the homestead set apart to the widow and minor child or children, or either constitutes all the real estate owned in this state by the decedent at the time of his death, the title to such homestead vests absolutely in them, whether there be administration on the estate of the decedent or not." It may be conceded that under the language of this section, if it expressed the legislative purpose at the time and applied to this case, the widow would not have taken an absolute fee. Her estate in the homestead in that event would have depended upon section 2069 of the Code of 1896, which would have created for the widow under the circumstances nothing more than an exemption from administration and the payment of debts during her life. So, then, the rights of appellant's vendor, the exemptioner in this case, having accrued subsequent to the act of December 13, 1892, and prior to the Code of 1896, the question at hand involves only an interpretation of the language of the act. The language of the section of the Code, if considered apart from other sections bearing on the same subject, may be clear enough, and in cases within its influence it may be that the court would be required to follow the plain and sound principle of declaring the law as it is written. Perhaps the language of the act, on the other hand, is not in all respects so clear as to entirely exclude the office of interpretation. Recast so as to eliminate its provisions for cases involving minors or personal property, neither case being here presented, but preserving strictly its grammatical and logical structure, the act may be quoted as follows: That whenever the land of a decedent, who dies leaving land less in value than the amount exempted by law, is set aside as provided by law to the widow, the title to the land so set aside shall vest absolutely in fee in the widow. The argument for appellee is, in short, that, in order that the title declared by the act shall vest absolutely, the...