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27 Pa. 75

Steacy v. Rice

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided July 1, 1856

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1856-07-01

This was an action of ejectment by Samuel Rice against John Steacy and Gainer Pierce, in which the jury found the following special verdict:— “ That Martin Herr, of Strasburg .township, Lancaster county, being seised of a certain messuage or tenement and parcel of land, situate in the borough of Strasburg, containing 5 acres and 61 perches, strict measure, in October 1805 made his last will and testament, proved April 27, 1810, and letters testamentary issued to Martin Herr,…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1856-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently January 1939

6 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.

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Lowrie, J.,

¶1delivered the following concurring opinion. — This is a devise to one in trust for the separate use of the testator’s daughter, a married woman, during her life, and then to her heirs in fee. The daughter became single, and then she and her daughter and only child joined in selling it. She outlived her daughter, and died leaving grandchildren, and one of them is now claiming that the deed of his mother and grandmother could convey only an estate for the life of his grandmother. Is it so ?

¶2Strike out the trust, and it is a devise to one for life with re*83mainder to her heirs, which is plainly a fee simple. Now the trust was struck out by an event involved in the nature of the gift, that is, when the testator’s daughter became sole; for then its purpose had been satisfied, and after that the trust stood for the sole benefit of a single woman, and was immediately executed by the statute of uses, and became a legal estate in her.

¶3This is therefore an estate in trust for the daughter during coverture, with remainder to her for life, and remainder in fee to her heirs. It is a gift of a legal freehold to her and them, in the same will, a limitation of the fee to her heirs, which makes a fee simple in her: 13 State Ref. 351. And we need not say what would be the effect if the estates were of different qualities. When, therefore, she sold the land to Steacy, she had full right to sell. ,

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