Court Opinion

ID: 9724581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:03:06.701756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:02.736402
License: Public Domain

On Application por Rehearing.
O’Hara, J.
After decision in this ease appellants filed an application for rehearing, alleging that sinee Leona Schlessman, one of the five joint life tenants under John Rendle’s will, was not yet dead, appellees, remaindermen under that will, were barred from bringing suit, eiting CLS 1961, § 600.3308 (Stat Ann 1962 Rev § 27A.3308).* This contention is without merit. The quitclaim deed given by Leona to her joint tenants (her brothers and sisters) in 1917 severed the joint life tenancy with respect to her. The other children ®f the testator remained in the relationship of joint life tenants with regard to an undivided 4/5 of the devised life interest, and became tenants in common for the term of Leona’s life with regard to the undivided 1/5 whieh aeerued to them by virtue of Leona’s quitclaim deed. See Midgley v. Walker, 101 Mich 583, (45 Am St Rep 431), and authorities there cited. Since Leona had but a life estate, the undivided 1/5 interest which she conveyed could endure only for as long as she lived.
Leona’s sisters later conveyed their interest in the undivided 1/5 interest to their brothers, Sidney and Leonard, fathers of appellants.
This, then, is the situation: With regard to the undivided 4/5 interest in the disputed lands, the grandchildren of John C. Rendle liave a possessory estate, since the precedent joint life estate in the testator’s children has terminated, by Leona’s eonveyanee to her brothers and sisters and by the deaths of those brothers and sisters. As to the undivided 1/5 interest in the lands, the appollants, through their fathers, have succeeded to this interest, which will terminate upon Leona’s death.
Therefore, appellees did not bring suit prematurely, sinee they have and then had “an estate in possession in the lands of which partition is sought.” However, in adjudicating the partition proceedings, the court will take into account the value of the undivided 1/5 interest in the lands whieh interest’s duration is measured by Leona’s life.
Appellants’ application for rehearing is denied.
Kavanagh, C. J., and Dethmers, Kelly, Black, Souris, Smith, and Adams, JJ., concurred.

 “Any person who has an estate in possession in the lands of which partition is sought may maintain a claim for partition of those lands, hut a person who has only an estate in reversion or remainder in the lands may not maintain a claim for their partition.”