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153 Mass. 481

Goodwin v. McDonald

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1891-04-03

Writ of entry, dated July 19, 1890, to recover an undivided half of a parcel of land in Lawrence. Plea, nul disseisin. At the trial in the Superior Court, without a jury, before Dewey, J., the following facts were not disputed. John Goodwin, who was seised in fee of the entire parcel, died on December 1, 1889, leaving a widow, Sadie Goodwin, and a son, the demandant.

Relies on Crossman v. Field · Moffat v. Cook

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-04-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 2011

1 district · 3 state decisions

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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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

W. Allen, J.

¶1The words of the will, “give, devise, and bequeath one half of all my property, both real and personal, to my beloved wife, Sadie Goodwin, the remaining half to my dear son, Francis Goodwin,” gave a fee to the wife and son. If there could be any doubt that the subsequent words, “ Should either wife or son die, their share to go to the survivor,” intend a death before the testator, the words which follow, “ Should both die, the property to go to the nearest of kin,” would remove it. The will cannot reasonably be construed to give life estates to the wife and son, with remainder for life to the survivor, and remainder in fee to the nearest of kin. Such a construction would be contrary to the plain meaning of the testator. Briggs v. Shaw, 9 Allen, 516. Crossman v. Field, 119 Mass. 170. Moffat v. Cook, 150 Mass. 529.

¶2Exceptions overruled.

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