Court Opinion

ID: 9834639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 01:35:52.955376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:45.606940
License: Public Domain

*224aThe following opinion was filed March 12, 1946:
Rosenberry, C. J.
(on motion for rehearing). The defendants have made a motion for rehearing in this case which appears to be based upon a misconception of what the court decided. Counsel say:
“We feel that the court has created a legal oddity and has so unsettled the rules of tenancies as known by the bar in this state that the decision, if allowed to stand, will produce much unnecessary litigation. It, therefore, seems important not only to our clients but also to the court, the bar in general, and the public at large, that the court again examine into this matter before letting this decision become final. . . .
“The court has created a tenancy in common with right of survivorship, although the court found the intent was to create a joint tenancy, and even though this court has always been committed to the doctrine that the only estate having the right of survivorship is a joint tenancy.”
The term “survivorship” is used mainly in three classes of cases: (1) Those involving jóint tenancy, an incident of which is the right of survivorship, where the instrument creating the joint tenancy “evinces an intention to create a joint tenancy in the grantees.” In this class of cases survivorship is dependent upon the nature of the tenancy.
(2) Estates by the entirety which are abolished by the laws of this state. In this class of cases survivorship is dependent upon the status of the parties as it can exist only where the grantees are husband and wife.
(3) Cases where a surviving tenant in common by virtue of the express terms of the instrument creating the tenancy takes the remainder. This species of survivorship is referred to in the opinion as a type. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that such an instrument creates an indestructible remainder rather than a type of survivorship. In this class of cases the right of the survivor to take the remainder does not depend upon the nature of the tenancy or the status of the *224bparties, but upon the express provisions of the instrument creating the remainder. The case under consideration falls in the third class:
With this explanation it ought to be perfectly clear that the court has done no violence to existing law.
By the Court. — Motion denied with $25 costs.