Court Opinion

ID: 9825242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:22:45.383514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:36.283823
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice BROWN
concurs in the views I have expressed.
It appears to the writer, aside from the fundamental difference between a possibility of a reverter that existed from 1890 to 1917, by reason, of Edward’s married life and possibilitiy1 of children, and that of a reverter from his death in 1917 to that of his wife in 1928, the change from law to law, as we have indicated, would fix the time at the death of Edward, and not that of his mother. This is material, as Staples and Powell’s deed by Mitchell and his sister (Mrs. Mercer) was in 1926.
It may be further suggested that, if the time and law of force be not taken as the date of change from the possibility of reverter to that of a reverter on the death of Edward (1917), but rather as that of the time and law in force at the death of Mrs. Isabella H. Emanuel in 1890, an added difficulty is presented in determining the persons who are the objects-(recipients) of the reverter under the statutes of descent and distribution. It is that the law of descent of real estate in the Code of 1886, § 1915, and that of the Code of 1907, § 3754, are materially different in some respects to be indicated. Subsections 1 are the same; subsection 2, at the time of Mrs. Emanuel’s death was, if there are no children, or their descendants, “then to the brothers and sisters of the intestate, or their descendants, in equal part” (Code 1886, § 1915, subsec. 2), while that at the time of the death of Edward provided, “If 'there are no children or their descendants, then to the father and mother, in equal parts” (Code 1907, § 3754, subsec. 2). So, also, is there material change where there is “one surviving parent,” under the law of force in 1917 (Code 1907, § 3754; Code 1923, § 7365); as to the interest of brothers and sisters, and as to that of the husband and wife under the respective contingencies indicated in the statute.
The question decided by the trial court, “that the fee in said property was not devised by the will, but remained in the testatrix, and at her death in 1890 passed to her then heirs at laiv, under the law of Alabama,” is in accord with the views of ANDERSON, C. J., and SAYRE, GARDNER, BOTJLDIN, and POSTER, JJ.
THOMAS and BROWN, JJ., dissent on this question as hereinabove indicated and for the reasons stated at length.
Affirmed.
ANDERSON, C. J., and SAYRE, GARDNER, BOULDIN, and FOSTER, JJ., concur.
THOMAS and BROWN, JJ.,- dissent as indicated.