Rives v. Burrage

Citations

• 110 Miss. 789
• 70 So. 893

Syllabus

<p>1. Wills. Construction. Estate conveyed. Intent of testator. Life estate. Rights of re?naindermen.</p> <p>The cardinal rule of construing a will and the dominant purpose of courts should ever be to discover the testators’ intentions and when it is discovered, it should be given effect.</p> <p>:2. Wills. Construction. Estates conveyed. Life estate.</p> <p>Under a testator’s will which gave his wife all his property for her natural life, with remainder to his children, and provided by a codicil that at his death she shall hold and enjoy all his property, not for life merely, hut absolutely as her own property, with full power to dispose thereof and further providing that property as to which she should not exercise the power should go to her children in remainder. In such case the wife took merely a life estate in the property she did not consume or otherwise dispose of during her life, the codicil being added merely for making clear the power of his wife to convey an indefeasible title to the property should she think it advisable to dispose of it during her life.</p> <p>■3. Wills. Estate created. Right of remaindermen.</p> <p>Where a testator left his property to his wife for life with full power of disposition during her life, she could not defeat the right of the remaindermen by selling the devised property and investing the proceeds in other property, whether intentionally or through misinterpretation of the will.</p>