Court Opinion

ID: 9810839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:01:02.13406+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:15.884229
License: Public Domain

BeogdeN, J.,
concurring: The decisions are to the effect that where an ultimate estate in expectancy is limited to a class of persons, to take effect upon the happening of a contingency, and there are persons m esse answering the description when the contingency happens, the law immediately calls the roll of the class, and those who answer, alone can take. Gill v. Weaver, 21 N. C., 41; Sanderlin v. Deford, 47 N. C., 74; Knight v. Knight, 56 N. C., 167; Hawkins v. Everett, 58 N. C., 42; Grissom v. Parish, 62 N. C., 330; Britton v. Miller, 63 N. C., 270; Wise v. Leonhardt, 128 N. C., 289, 38 S. E., 892; Cooley v. Lee, 170 N. C., 18, 86 S. E., 720; Witty v. Witty, 184 N. C., 375, 114 S. E., 482.
*33But tbis rule requires tbat tbe class of persons, alone to take, be plainly designated and definitely described. Demil v. Reid, 71 Md., 187.
Here, tbe limitation is not so clear, nor tbe circumscription of tbó class so definite, as to exclude tbe legal representatives of deceased brothers and sisters, either of tbe testator or of bis wife, from sharing in tbe estate, even though there may be living brothers and sisters of tbe testator and of bis wife capable of taking in their own right at tbe termination of tbe particular estate. In tbis respect tbe decision in Fulton v. Waddell, 191 N. C., 688, 132 S. E., 669, may be apocryphal or of doubtful authority, and to tbe extent tbat it does not accord with tbe decision in tbe instant case, it should be regarded as disapproved.