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110 Mo. 411

Shumate v. Bailey

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided June 6, 1892

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1892-06-06

— Hon. H. C. O’Bbyan, .Judge. This is an action for the partition of land in New Madrid county, Missouri. After a judgment, ascertaining the interests of the several parties and directing a sale, the land was sold and the proceeds await the disposition of this appeal.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Revebsed and demanded · Decided 1892-06-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1950

3 state decisions

301892190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Barclay, J.

¶1In this proceeding for partition the trial court adjudged the respective interests of the parties upon the theory that the will of John T. Miller, deceased (a full copy of which appears in the accompanying statement), did not reach or devise his real estate, and that he died intestate as to such realty.

¶2*415That view was indicated by the rejection of a declaration of law tendered by appellants, embodying the converse proposition, to the refusal of which they ■excepted. No instructions were given; none other, refused.

¶3•The appellants claim that the will disposed of all his property, real and personal.

¶4The decision of the issue thus raised determines the amount of interest in the subject-matter of this action properly belonging to each of the parties to the litigation.

¶5In the construction of wills, the intention of the maker, as gathered from the terms he has used to express it, enlightened by the circumstances of his situation, should have paramount force and effect.

¶6This rule is well known and conceded by all here.'

¶7Applying it, we see that, in the fourth item,' the testator undertakes to divide his “estate,” “when realized,” “in three equal parts,” and to d/spose of it to his two children and wife, etc. He uses tLe word “bequeath,” but the context enlarges the technical meaning of it to signify “give” or “devise.” Watson v. Watson (1892), decided at this term.

¶8The language of that section, as well as of other parts of the document, fairly indicates that he contemplated a sale of all his real property, except that set apart for his wife (the exact nature and extent of whose interest we need not determine, as this appeal does not ■question the circuit court’s ruling upon that point), and that the proceeds (after paying the $700 legacy) should be divided and invested according to the directions in that clause.

¶9It was remarked by Chief Justice Shaw in Godfrey v. Humphrey (1837), 18 Pick. 539, that “it has long been held that the devise of all a man’s estate, where there are not words to control or restrain its operation, shall *416be construed, not merely to mean Ms lands, but the quantity of interest which he has in them, so as to pass ah estate of inheritance, if he has one. Carter v. Horner, 4 Mod. 89.”

¶10In Hackett v. Commonwealth (1883), 102 Pa. St. 505, Judge Sterrett, speaking for the court, held that, “the word ‘estate’ is applicable alike to real and personal property, and to restrict it to the latter there should be a clear expression of the intention to do so.”

¶11The same rule is stated in Barnes v. Patch (1803), 8 Ves. 604, and in Hunt v. Hunt (1855), 4 Gray, 193.

¶12Reading the will as a whole we consider its reasonable and natural construction to include a disposition of the testator’s entire estate, both in his real and personal property.

¶13The only controversy in the present record is upon that subject.

¶14We think the learned trial judge was mistaken in ruling that the will did not dispose of the realty.

¶15The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with directions to proceed to ascertain the several interests of the parties in the proceeds of said land according to the principles above indicated.

Chief Justice Sherwood and Black and Brace, JJ., concur.
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