Robinson v. Blankinship

• Decision Date: 23 April 1906
• Citation: 92 S.W. 854
• Parties: ROBINSON v. BLANKINSHIP et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 854

92 S.W. 854

ROBINSON v. BLANKINSHIP et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April 23, 1906.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Gibson County; John S. Cooper, Chancellor.

Action by J. E. Robinson, as administrator, against Mrs. M. A. Blankinship and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

W. M. McCaul, for appellants. Ed Smith, for appellee.

BEARD, C. J.

The present case involves as its only question the constructions of the concluding clause in the habendum of a deed made by J. M. Blankinship to his wife, M. A. Blankinship, on the 5th of March, 1888, conveying to her certain real estate. The whole of the habendum is as follows: "To have and to hold unto the said M. A. Blankinship during her natural life (or so long as she may remain a widow in the event I should die before she does), together with all the appurtenances thereunto belonging, with remainder to me in event she should die before I do, and, should she survive me, then at her death or marriage to my heirs at law."

In 1895 the grantor in this deed made a second deed to his wife, by which he undertook to convey to her the property covered by that deed in fee simple, subject alone to the right upon the part of the grantor to occupy the same and receive the rent thereof during her natural life. After the execution and delivery of this second deed, the husband died leaving surviving him Mrs. M. A. Blankinship and two children, one a son and the other a daughter. The son died, leaving one heir, a boy. The daughter married. Subject to the death of the husband, Mrs. Blankinship made a mortgage on this property for the purpose of securing a note executed by her to the intestate of the present complainant, the proceeds of this note being used for the purpose of satisfying a mortgage on the same property made by her deceased husband in his lifetime. The holder of the note, it being unpaid, filed the present bill to foreclose that mortgage and appropriate its proceeds to the satisfaction of this claim. The daughter of J. M. Blankinship, the grantor of the two deeds first mentioned, with her husband and the grandson of the grantor, as well as the mortgagor, Mrs. Blankinship, were made parties defendant to the cause.

The heirs of J. M. Blankinship insist that they take as purchasers under the terms of the reservation in the habendum clause of the deed of 1888, which has been hereinbefore set out.

It will be seen that an estate during her natural life, or as long as she remained a widow, should she survive her husband, was given by that deed to Mrs. Blankinship, this grant covering only a part of the grantor's fee-simple title. Upon the termination of the life estate, the grantor surviving, as a reversioner he would have been entitled at once to enter upon the possession of the property, or if he was dead at that time, then his heirs, occupying the place of the grantor, could have asserted the same right. The interest which the grantor had after the grant of the life estate to his wife, determinable upon her marrying again should she become his widow, was technically an estate in...