Smith v. Sweringen

26 Mo. 551
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 15, 1858
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 26 Mo. 551 (Smith v. Sweringen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Smith v. Sweringen, 26 Mo. 551 (Mo. 1858).

Opinion

Napton, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Several points have been discussed in this case which we think it unnecessary to determine.

The answers of Sweringen, Mitchell, Goode, &c., involve the proper construction of Christy’s will. At the date of this will, two of the testator’s daughters were dead — one of them, Mrs. Wash (previously Mrs. Berry), leaving three children— and the other, Mrs. Farrar, leaving one daughter, Mrs. Sweringen. The third and eighth clauses of the will declare what portion of his'estate undisposed of these grand-children should take. They provide that the three children of Mrs. Wash shall have their mother’s share, and the one child of Mrs. Farrar shall have only half of her mother’s share ; but, in undertaking to describe what the mother’s share in each case would be, the testator uses language to indicate a child’s portion of his entire estate, without reference to the deductions already made from it by his specific legacies to his daughter "Virginia and to his executors for the payment of his debts. He speaks of it as “ such portion of my landed estate as would have been her mother’s had she survived me and I had died intestate.” Of course, if the testator had died intestate, Mrs. Sweringeu’s mother would have been entitled to one-seventh (or a child’s part) of his entire estate, and one-half of this one-seventli is what Mrs. Sweringen now claims, and one-tliird is demanded as the share of each of the children of Mrs. Wash.

The testator had already devised specific portions of his real estate to his daughter Virginia, and also a portion of his real estate to his executors for payment of his debts. Three of his daughters he did not name in his will at all. If we construe the intestacy alluded to in these devises to Mrs. Sweringen and to the children of Mrs. Wash as a total intestacy, the effect of such construction is either to force the specific devisees into hotch-pot with the other children named and not named, or to diminish the shares of the children not named by subtracting from them the amount of the [564]*564estate specifically devised. A reference to the entire scope of the will will show that either of these results would be directly contrary to the intent of the testator.

Unless the will so provided, it is plain that the specific devisee is not bound to bring her legacy into hotch-potch. A devise is not an advancement in the meaning of the statute. As the share of Virginia, the specific devisee, could not be disturbed, then the effect of the construction contended for by the representatives of Mrs. Wash and Mrs. Farrar is to throw the entire burden of the specific devises upon the children not named, whose shares would thus be diminished in exact proportion to the increase of the specific devises ; whilst the share of the grand-children who are named, and named with altogether another purpose in the testator’s mind, would be more and more disproportionate to the shares of the children not particularly named. The testator had evidently no such purpose in contemplation. He was providing only in reference to that portion of his estate not already disposed of, and his intention seems to have been that it should be distributed exactly as the law would distribute it, except in one particular. For reasons satisfactory to himself, he declared that Mrs. Sweringen should only have one-half of her mother’s share. His only reason for mentioning the representatives of his two deceased daughters was to determine their shares according to what he esteemed right, without regard to the rule which the law of descents might apply, concerning which he was uninformed, and against the operation of which, if it should conflict with his intentions, ho wished to guard. He therefore virtually says: “ I devise all my estate, which I have not disposed of in this will, to be legally divided among my children; and as to the children of my deceased daughters, Mrs. Farrar and Mrs. Wash, my will is that the three children of the latter shall have each one-third of their mother’s share, and that Mrs. Sweringen shall not have the full share of her mother, but only a half shareand the intestacy he alludes to is intestacy as to the [565]*565property be was then speaking of, and not as to that portion of his estate already devised.

The answers of Mitchell, Goode and Sweringen were therefore properly stricken out.

So much of the answer of Susan P. Christy as relates to the suits now pending on the bonds given by Howard Christy to the heirs of William Christy appears to be foreign to any issues in this case. If the facts alleged are a good defence in equity or law to those suits, why litigate the matter here ? The answer asserts that the defence is a good one, and if so, the suits upon the bonds can not result to her injury.

The answer of Susan P. Christy also stated that in the former partition of W. Christy’s estate, a lot (No. 256) had been assigned to her husband, Howard Christy, which it turned out had been conveyed by William Christy in his lifetime to Bernard G. Farrar; that this allotment by the commissioners was made in ignorance of the fact and by mistake ; and the court is asked to allow her for the value of the lost lot in the division now to be made. The right of Howard Christy or his devisee to have this mistake corrected is the question involved in this portion of Susan Christy’s answer. This right has been chiefly based upon a warranty which every partition among coparceners is supposed to create. It is insisted that this warranty was by the common law annexed to every compulsory partition among coparceners, and that no statute in Missouri has altered the law in this respect. On the other hand, it is argued that the estate of coparcenary as known in England has no existence here ; and, whether it exists or not, that the doctrines of implied warranty in reference to this estate have never been adopted here, and are contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of our laws; and finally, that, admitting the existence of the estate and of the doctrine of warranty in connection with it, still, under the doctrine as understood in England, the alienee of a coparcener is not entitled to the benefit of it, and that Mrs. Susan P. Christy is therefore not in a position to assert the claim. We do not propose to examine these questions, although they [566]*566have been extensively discussed. Waiving their consideration entirely, we do not see any good reasons why Howard Christy, if living, might not, upon ordinary principles of equity, assert the claim which is now urged by his widow. Whether his devisee, Mrs. Christy, occupies as favorable a position as he would, is another question, which we will separately examine.

Laying aside all considerations of a warranty, express or implied, we have a state of facts alleged in the answer which would seem to authorize the action of a court of equity under its ordinary jurisdiction over accidents or mistakes. A partial partition of Christy’s estate is made, in which a lot has been assigned to his son Howard which the father had several years before conveyed away. The fact was not known at the time of the partition by any of the parties to it, or to the commissioners who made the allotment. The partition embraced only a portion of the estate, and a second and final partition of the residue is about to be made.

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Bluebook (online)
26 Mo. 551, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-sweringen-mo-1858.