Hughes v. Scott

RICHARDS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendants in an action to quiet title. The facts of the case are undisputed and are briefly these: Michael Hughes was in his lifetime the owner of the premises in question. He had a son, William I. Hughes, who was the father of the plaintiffs herein, and a daughter, Alice Scott, who is one of the defendants, and he left surviving him his widow, Annie Hughes, another of said defendants.

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On February 6, 1917, Michael Hughes made a gift deed of the premises in question to his grandson by another child, Leo C. Matthews, granting to the latter a life estate in said property. Following the words of said grant the deed contained this clause: “In the event of the death of said grantee herein said real property to revert to Alice Scott, my daughter, and to her heirs and assigns, and in the event of the death of said Alice Scott before the death of

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said grantee herein then said property to revert to the heirs of said grantee.” The habendum clause read as follows: “To have and to hold all and singular the said premises, together with the appurtenances and privileges thereunto incident unto the said party of the second part during his lifetime

and as hereinbefore set forth.”

After the death of Michael Hughes this action was commenced by the plaintiffs as his children and heirs to establish and quiet their title to their alleged interest in said property.' To the amended complaint filed herein the defendants interposed a' demurrer which the trial court sustained, and upon failure or refusal of the plaintiffs to amend, judgment was entered in the defendants’ favor, from which judgment this appeal is taken.

The sole contention of the appellants is that by the clause above quoted from said deed no present interest in said property was conveyed either to Alice Scott or to the heirs of Leo C. Matthews, the grantee named in said deed. The only authority cited by the appellants in support of this contention is the case of

McGarrigle

v.