Dustin v. Brown

130 N.E. 859, 297 Ill. 499
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedApril 21, 1921
DocketNo. 13666
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 130 N.E. 859 (Dustin v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dustin v. Brown, 130 N.E. 859, 297 Ill. 499 (Ill. 1921).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Stone

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a partition suit brought by appellants against appellees, seeking partition of certain lands in Logan county and for other relief. By clause 2 of the will of Dorrel F. Wright he devised to his daughter, Mary E. Wright, (now Dustin,) a life interest in an undivided one-half of a tract of land containing 1100 acres and referred to as the home farm, under the following condition: “and after her death to her children and their descendants forever.” By the fourth clause of the will Mary was devised an undivided one-half in another tract in fee. The other undivided one-half in these lands was by will devised to her brother, Frank. By the second clause of a codicil to the will Mary and Frank were each devised an undivided one-half of a certain 105-acre tract, “to have and to hold the same upon' the same terms and conditions as the other lands willed to my son and daughter in and by my last will and testament, to which this is and shall be a codicil.” On July 19, 1899, Frank filed a bill for partition of all the lands of which Dorrel F. Wright died seized. A decree was entered in accordance with the prayer of the bill, dividing and setting off to each of the parties thereto certain portions of the lands in severalty, such partition being made by the decree entered therein, “subject to the conditions and in accordance with the limitations contained in the last will and testament of Dorrel F. Wright, deceased, and the codicils thereto annexed.”

Mary E. Wright in 1885 intermarried with William L. Dustin. A child, Julian, was born to them, who died in infancy. On May 2, 1901, another child, Geraldine, one of the appellants herein, was born and is now living. Dustin died intestate on December 10, 1917, leaving as his only heirs the appellants, Mary E. and Geraldine Dustin. On May 21, 1888, Stephen Evans and J. Frederick Cull recovered a judgment against William L. Dustin and others for the sum of $1316.86 and costs. In May, 1895, this judgment was sought to be revived by scire facias proceedings against Dustin. In January, 1887, appellee George D. Cor-wine recovered a judgment against Dustin and others in the circuit court of Logan county for the sum of $1387. In January, 1898, scire facias proceedings were filed against Dustin to revive said judgment, and orders were entered in each case reviving the judgment as against Dustin alone. In February, 1898, executions were issued on both of these judgments against Dustin and levies were made and sales had thereunder. The sheriff’s deed issued on October 26, 1899, conveyed to Cull and Corwine, as tenants in common, the alleged interest of Dustin in the lands devised by the will of Dorrel F. Wright to his daughter, Mary, wife of Dustin, by the second clause of the will and the second clause of the codicil, being one-half of the home farm of 1100 acres and of the 105-acre tract mentioned in. the codicil, which had been assigned to Mary in the partition proceedings between her and her brother, Frank, and the question here arises whether or not upon the birth of the infant, Julian, to Mary E. and William L. Dustin, the fee to the lands vested in said child subject to being opened up to let in after-born .children, and that upon Julian’s death Dustin took a one-half interest in said lands as the heir of said infant.

The sheriff’s deed purported to convey to James F. Cull an undivided seventy-second part and to George D. Cor-wine an undivided twenty-eighth part of the interest of William L. Dustin in the lands described in the deed, being the lands herein referred to as having been sold under execution. Cull having died, the appellee Margaret Helen Cull Brown, as his sole heir-at-law, stands in his place.

It appears from the record that on July 1, 1919, Geraldine Dustin, then of legal age, released and quit-claimed to her mother, Mary E. Dustin, a tract of .37 of an acre in the land' herein referred to as the home farm of Dorrel F. Wright, and also another tract of one acre out of the 105-acre tract passing under the second clause of the codicil to the will. On the 5th day of July, 1919, Mary .E. Dustin re-conveyed by quit-claim deed to .Geraldine an undivided one-half interest in the two small tracts of land, and thereupon Geraldine filed the present bill for partition, to remove cloud and for the construction of the will of Dorrel E. Wright, setting up the transactions reference to which has hereinbefore been made. The bill alleged that the judgments, levy of execution and sale thereunder were irregular and void and constituted a cloud on the complainant’s title, and asked for a partition of the tracts of land contained in the conveyances between' the complainant and her mother. Appellees were made parties and answered, claiming an interest in the lands involved under their sheriff’s deed. Later appellees filed a cross-bill, in which they asked for a reformation of the sheriff’s deed issued to Evans and Cull in 1899, on the ground that a mutual mistake occurred, alleging that their interests, instead of being an undivided seventy-second part and an undivided twenty-eighth part, are an undivided seventy-two-hundredths and an undivided twenty-eight-hundredths of the tracts, of land described in the deed, and by their cross-bill praying partition of the remainder of all the lands in which Mary E. Dustin acquired a life interest under the will and codicils of Dorrel F. Wright. Appellants answered this cross-bill, denying the averments as to the validity of the sheriff’s deed or that there was a mistake, and setting up that more than twenty years having elapsed since the making of the sheriff’s deed, appellees have been guilty of laches, and for that reason are not entitled to have any “reformation of the deed. The answer further denied that appellees had any interest in the premises.

The cause was referred to the master, who reported the equities with the cross-complainants and recommended the granting of the relief sought by the cross-bill. The master expressly found that Mary E. Dustin was incapable of fur- t ther childbearing, and that therefore the rights and interests of the parties were not subject to being further opened up to let in after-born children but the interests in the lands in question had become fixed. He recommended also the reformation of the sheriff’s deed and partition of the remainder in the lands involved in accordance with the prayer of the cross-bill. He also found that Mary E. Dustin took a life estate in the lands devised to her by her father under the second clause of the will and the second clause of the codicil, with the remainder vested in her children when born, and that upon the birth of Julian the remainder vested in him, and later by his death descended to Mary E. and William L. Dustin as his heirs-at-law, and that the interests held by William passed under the sheriff’s deed to the holders thereof, but were subsequently opened up and decreased to a one-fourth interest in the remainder upon the birth of Geraldine Dustin. The court entered a decree in conformity with the master’s findings.

The contention of the appellees is that both under the second clause of the will and the codicil of Dorrel F. Wright, Mary E. Dustin took a life estate, and that upon the birth of her first child, Julian, the entire fee in remainder vested at once in the child subject to being opened up upon the birth of other children, and that upon the death of Julian in infancy the entire fee passed as intestate property, one-half to the mother and one-half to the father, William L.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
130 N.E. 859, 297 Ill. 499, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dustin-v-brown-ill-1921.