Court Opinion

ID: 9828204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:12:19.141372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:19.718671
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant complains of the omission in our original opinion of specified parts of his petition which, as alleged, is thought to be material in the construction of the will under consideration, and which, if included in our statement of the case, would perhaps lead to a conclusion different from that announced in our opinion. Complaint is also made of some of our references to appellee’s brief and to the admission of the parties on hearing. As to these objections, we will state that appellant’s petition, to which the court below sustained a general demurrer, covers some twelve pages of the transcript, and an inclusion of the whole in an opinion would be, we think, impractical and unnecessary. We thought it only necessary to copy such portions of the petition, and to refer to such averments, as we concluded would sufficiently indicate its effect, but, if we have inadvertently, or through any misconception, omitted any part of the original petition material to a consideration of the question involved we cannot see that it will operate to the injury of appellant, inasmuch as the entire petition as well as other parts of the record, will be before the court clothed with jurisdiction to correct our errors.
As to other matters discussed in the motion we can but think, as we endeavored to express in our original opinion, that appellant’s petition as a whole on its face fails to show, any such vested or contingent interest in the lands described in the petition as entities him to the relief sought. In 40 Oye. p. 1846, par. 2, it is said:
“A court of equity will not take jurisdiction of a suit for the construction of a will unless it can afford immediate relief. It will not undertake, where there is no matter in dispute, to declare future rights, nor will it ever undertake to decide upon and determine contingencies which may never arise, unless such determination is necessary for the decision of some immediate relief to be granted, and which it can enforce by a decree. Such a suit may sometimes be entertained, however, where it is brought by an executor or a testamentary trustee, although a like suit by other parties would be dismissed as premature. Inasmuch as a premature adjudication is .not binding, the court of its own motion will investigate the question whether the purpose of the suit is merely to obtain a declaration of future rights, even though all the parties desire to have the will construed. The jurisdiction of courts of equity in respect to testamentary construction will never be exercised for the purpose of determining hypothetical, abstract, or moot questions.”
On page 1847 of 40 Oye., it is further said:
“It is clear on principle that a suit to construe a will cannot be brought by a person who has no personal interest in the property disposed of or in the construction of the will, and who may never have any such interest.”
As we interpret appellant’s petition, the only possible right >by virtue of which a court of equity could award the relief sought ⅛ that of a remainderman. In Black’s Law Dictionary (2d Ed.) p. 1013, an estate in remainder is said to be:
“The remnant of an estate in land, depending upon a particular prior estate created at the same time and by the same instrument, and lim-' ited to arise immediately on the determination of that estate, and not in abridgment of it. 4 Kent, Gomm. 197.”
In 2 Blackstone, 164, it is thus defined:
“An estate which is limited to take effect and be enjoyed after another estate is determined. As, if a man seised in fee-simple gránts lands, to A. for twenty years, and, after the determination of the said term, then to B. and his heirs forever, here A. is tenant for years, remainder to B. in fee.”
The case of Anderson v. Menefee (Tex. Civ. App.) 174 S. W. 904, involved the construe*274tion of a will. We had occasion to quote the following from Mr. Gray in his wort on Perpetuities on page 5, thus defining the distinction between a vested and a contingent remainder:
“A remainder is vested if, at every moment during its continuance it is ready to come into possession, whenever and however the preceding estates determine. A remainder is contingent if, and in order for it to come into possession, the fulfillment of some condition precedent, other than the determination of the preceding estates, is necessary.”
In Thornton v. Zea, 22 Tex. Civ. App. 509, 55 S. W. 798, by the San Antonio Court of Civil Appeals, in the opinion by the lamented Neill, Associate Justice, it is said:
“Estates are vested when there is a person in being who would have an immediate right to the possession of the lands upon the ceasing of the intermediate or precedent estate. They are contingent while the person to whom, or the event upon which, they are limited to take effect remains uncertain.”
In 40 Cyc. p. 1664, it is said:
“Remainders created by will may be either vested or contingent. A vested remainder is a remainder limited to a certain person and on a certain event, so as to possess a present capacity to take effect in possession should the possession become vacant; while a contingent remainder is a remainder limited to an uncertain person or on an uncertain event, or so limited to a certain person and on a certain event as not to possess the present capacity to take effect in possession should the possession become vacant. * * * The chief characteristic which distinguishes a vested from a contingent remainder is the present capacity to take effect in possession should the possession become vacant, and the certainty that the event upon which the vacancy depends will happen some time, and not upon the certainty that it will happen or the possession become vacant during the lifetime of the remainderman. In case of a vested remainder, there is a person in being ascertained and ready to take, who has a present right of future enjoyment, which is not dependent upon any uncertain event or contingency, while in the case of a contingent remainder the right itself is uncertain. The uncertainty, therefore, which distinguishes' a contingent remainder is the uncertainty of the right and not the actual enjoyment.”
On page 1682 of 40 Oye., par. IV, it is said:
“A contingent remainder fails where it cannot take effect on the termination of the life estate. A contingent estate in favor of an unborn beneficiary does not fail until it becomes incapable of taking effect by the termination of the event or time prescribed since the possibility of issue is, in contemplation of law, extinguished only with life.”
Under the rules so given, it appears to us, in addition to the reasons given in our original opinion, that plaintiff’s petition fails to exhibit any vested or contingent estate in the lapds involved which will authorize a court of law or equity to award to appellant the relief prayed for in his petition.
The motion for rehearing is accordingly overruled.