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9 Mass. 508

Wells v. Prince

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1813-03-15

This was a petition for partition of certain lands in Boston, on which a verdict was taken for the petitioner, at the last March term in this county, subject to the opinion of the Court upon the following point, viz.: — Francis Wells, being seised of the lands in question, devised all his real estate to his wife, Susannah, for her life, remainder to the petitioner and others, and died in 1766.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1813-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently February 1941

13 state decisions

4018131820183018401850186018701880189019001910192019301940decided

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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By the Court.

¶1The defence in this case is, that the devisee for life having never entered, her refusal to accept the devise is to be presumed; and then the right of entry of the petitioner or remainder man having accrued immediately, he was bound to enter within twenty years; and, having failed so to enter, his right of entry is gone, without which he cannot maintain this process.

¶2That those in remainder might have entered immediately on the refusal of the devisee for life to accept the devise, is true. But one may have different rights of entry; and although the devisee for life refuses to accept the estate devised, and the remainder-man thereby acquires an immediate right of entry, yet he is not obliged to avail himself of his right, so accruing; but he may enter after his second right accrues by the death of the tenant for life. The petitioner, then, had not lost his right of entry on the death of Susannah Wells, and he is entitled to partition of the premises. Let the interlocutory judgment be entered, quad partitio fiat, (a)

¶3 [ Wallingford vs. Hearl, 15 Mass. Rep. 471. — And vide Parsons vs. Wells, S. C 4 Mass. Rep. 64. — Jenk. C. R. 254. — Ed.]

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