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97 N.Y. 526

Temple v. . Sammis

New York Court of Appeals

Decided December 16, 1884

New York Court of Appeals · decided 1884-12-16

(Reported below, 16 J. & S. 324.) This action was brought to compel a specific performance by defendant of a contract to purchase certain premises known as lot No. 13 West Thirty-second street, in the city of New York. Defendant refused to complete the contract because of an alleged defect in the title.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1884-12-16

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently July 1938

3 state decisions

10188418901900191019201930decided

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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Rapallo, J.

¶1 We are clearly of opinion that under the will of Pierre K. Francis, deceased, his daughters Emma and Virginia took estates in remainder, in fee simple, in the house and lot in Thirty-second street, limited upon the death of the testator’s wife, to whom a life estate was given.

¶2 All the residue of the testator’s real estate he devised, subject to the dower of his wife, to his two above-named daughters for life, for their separate use, free from the control of their husbands, with remainder to their issue. The interjection in this devise of the residue, of the words, “and all other property given and devised to them,” is parenthetical. Those words are intended to connect only with the declaration that the daughters are to take to their separate use, and to apply this direction to all the property given them, including the Thirty-second street house. The habendum for life, etc., which follows, is applicable only to the residuary estate devised in the second clause, and not to the devise of the house and lot, in the first clause, which is therein expressly declared to be given absolutely, that is, in fee.

¶3 This construction brings all the provisions of the will into accord, and accomplishes what the testator evidently intended.

¶4 The judgment should be affirmed with costs.

¶5 All concur.

¶6 Judgment affirmed,

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