Noel's Adm'r v. Noel's Adm'r

Citations

• 86 Va. 109
• 9 S.E. 584
• 1889 Va. LEXIS 16

Syllabus

<p>1. Decrees—Interlocutory—Costs.—Every decree that leaves anything to be done by the court is interlocutory as between the parties remaining in court, even though it disposes of the costs.</p> <p>2. Idem—Petition for rehearing—Case at bar.—A decree construing a will adjudged that a devisee was entitled to certain land, but to nothing else unless he brought the land into hotch-pot. Its value and boundaries had not been ascertained. The residue of the estate had not been sold, nor the debts ascertained, nor an account taken of the advancements. A later decree confirmed a survey of the land made under the former decree and adjusted the costs: held, neither of these decrees, nor both together, did not constitute, as to said devisee, a final decree, though they did adjudicate the principles of the cause; and he was entitled to file a petition to rehear them after the expiration of one year from the date of the later decree.</p> <p>3. Idem—Case at bar.—The fact that devisee had filed and withdrawn with leave of the court, a petition to rehear the decree does not bar his administrator from filing a similar petition.</p> <p>4. yVn,is—Canstruction—Case at bar—-Testator devised his property, except land devised to his wife, to be equally divided among his children. He referred to a memorandum of advancements, which he wished to accompany his will, “in order that an equal distribution of his estate might be made.” After his wife’s death he added a codicil devising to a son certain land, and reciting that the death of his wife and other considerations induced him to modify his will, and that his son had lived with and been a great service and comfort to him, and that he revoked so much of the will as was inconsistent with the codicil, which did not value the land, and it was not mentioned-in the memorandum: held, the son took the land, in addition to his share under the will, without having to account- for it.</p>