Court Opinion

ID: 9810083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:39:30.264412+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:22.496903
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
concurring: I concur that the mortgage to Sterling Johnston is valid. Seeing the deed from M. A. *335Allen to R. J. Allen on the records of the Register’s office, he was not required to examine the will book to ascertain whether M. A. Allen had not devised the land to some one else after conveying it by deed to R. J. Allen.
R. J. Allen, having qualified as executor under the will of M. A. Allen, is bound to execute it as far as lies in his power. He was also a legatee in the will. He cannot claim “under the will and against it.” By qualifying, lie made his election. Now, what did the will direct as to the home place which had already been conveyed to him? It directed, first, that the testator’s wife should have it for life. R. J. Allen is bound by that. Had it directed that at her death it should go to some one else, R. J. Allen would have been bound by it. Had it directed that at her death R. J. Allen should take it and pay $2,000 upon it, the $2,000 would have been a charge upon it. But none of these things did. the will require. It provides that as to the land given to his wife “at her death” — not before — “if said R. J. Allen shall think proper to pay $2,000” for the land which had been left to the wife during her life “he shall have the privilege of doing so.” Now, by qualifying as executor he assented that M. A. Allen’s disposition of the land is valid. That disposition is to the testator’s wife for life and “at her death” an option to R. J. Allen to take the land if he shall pay the sum of $2,000. Being an option he could exercise his choice either way, and still execute the will. If he had exercised this option by declining the land upon those terms, it would have been in accordance with the will, not against it, and the land would have gone into the residuary clause, if one, and, if not, the testator would have been intestate as to the remainder in said land on which the option was given R. J. Allen.
At the death of the wife of the testator, he elected to take the realty, which thereupon became charged with the afore*336said sum of $2,000 with interest from that date, said charge being subordinate, however, to the mortgage executed to Sterling Johnston.' The time elapsing since the death of the testator’s wife (in 1878) at which time R. J. Allen by the terms of the will “at her death” was given the option to take the property subject to the charge, or let it alone, has been sufficient to bar the plaintiff’s claim upon said $2,000 except as to Mrs. House.
Paiecloth, C. J., and Douglas, J., dissent.