A tenant in tail by gift of the crown for public services, cannot bar the entail by fine or recovery, even as against his own issue, while a remainder or reversion subsists in the crown. (a)

A tenant in tail may devise his estate for charitable without fine or recovery. (b) purposes,

III. TITLES UNDER TENANTS FOR LIFE.

Tenants for life are either made so by express grant or devise, and hold either for their own lives or pur auter vie, or are so by the operation of the law, as tenants by the curtesy, or in dower. A tenant in tail, after the possibility of issue extinct, is also, for all the purposes of alienation, only a tenant for life.

A tenant for life may transfer his estate, or he may create an under-lease to be derived out of his estate; but all the estates which he grants, unless through the intervention of a power, will determine when his estate shall have filled the measure of its duration. (c)

Neither the surrender nor merger of an estate for life, will have any effect to defeat or determine any underleases granted, or charges created by the tenant for life prior to the merger or surrender. Nor will a forfeiture by tenant for life by tortious alienation or otherwise, involve or prejudice the interests of his tenants, or those who have charges under him. (d)

Estates for life may be encumbered by judgments, in like manner as estates in fee simple, with the difference only which arises from the extent of the several

(a) Co. Litt. 372, b. 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 20. See post.

(b) 43 Eliz. c. 4. Prec. Cha. 390.

Atty. Genl. v. Rye, 2 Vern. 453.

(c) 1 Prest. Abs. 427.
(d) 1 Prest. Abs. 429.

estates. The same inquiries as to these charges must therefore be made. (a)

Where there was a devise to A. and her heirs, but if she die, leaving issue, then to such issue and their heirs, the husband is not entitled to be tenant by the curtesy; for the children take by purchase, and not by descent. (b)

IV. TITLES UNDER TENANTS PUR AUTER VIE.

Estates for the life of the tenant himself, will necessarily determine at his death; but estates for the life of another, or for several lives, may devolve from the tenant to his representatives, according to the words of limitation.

Thus, if lands be granted or devised to a man and his heirs, or to a man and his executors or administrators, for the life of another, or for the lives of others, they will, on his death, go to the representatives who are specified; and if lands be granted to a man for the life of another, or the lives of others, they will, on his death, go to the executors or administrators, as part of his personal estate, and to be dealt with and distributed accordingly. (c)

Freehold estates pur auter vie are now made devisable by a will executed and attested according to the formalities prescribed for devising estates of freehold estates; (d) and even though the will be not so executed, if the executor take the lands, he will be a trustee for the legatee. (e)

(a) 1 Prest. Abs. 446.

(b) Barker v. Barker, 2 Sim. 249; and see Sumner v. Partridge, 2 Atk. 47.

(c) 29 Car. II. c. 3, s. 12; 14 Geo.

II. c. 20. s. 9.

(d) 29 Car. II. c. 3. s. 12. Westfaling v. Westfaling, 3 Atk. 465. (e) Ripley v. Waterworth, 7 Ves.

425.

ee

Where a man was entitled to an estate, to him and his heirs for three lives, and devised the land to another without any words of limitation, it has lately been held by Mr. J. Bayley that the whole estate did not pass, but that the deviser merely took an estate for his life, and that the heir of the devisor was entitled to the lands as a special occupant; (a) but this case has met with some disapprobation from the profession, and may, perhaps, deserve re-consideration. (b)

Estates for a life or lives, though limited to the heirs of the body, are mere estates of freehold, and not of inheritance. (c) Therefore neither dower nor curtesy can arise from the seisin of an estate of this description. Nor is an estate tail created. There is merely an estate in the nature of an estate tail, a quasi entail; (d) which quasi entail is not within the protection of the statute de donis. (e)

This kind of estate admits of limitations by way of strict settlement, as to one for life, remainder to another as quasi tenant in tail with limitations over; and unless there be an alienation by the quasi tenant in tail, there will be a descent to the heirs of his body, either specially or generally, according to the form of the gift; and, on failure of the heirs of his body, the limitations over will take effect in their regular order by special occupancy. (ƒ)

(c) Grey v. Manock, cit. 6 T. R. 292. Blake v. Blake, in the Exchequer, 1786. 3 P.W. 10. by Cox. n. (1).

(d) Low ". Burron, 3 P. Wms. 262. Grey v. Manock, 6 T. R. 292. (e) 1 Prest. Abs. 436.

(f) Fearne Ex. Dev. 386, 4th ed. Low v. Burron, 3 P. Wms. 262. Doe v. Luxton, 6 T. R. 292.

An estate for lives cannot transgress the rule against perpetuities, as no limitation of an estate for lives can be too remote. (a)

A person who has an estate for the life or lives of another or others, cannot bar the limitations over. (b)

Where there is a limitation to one and his heirs, with a limitation over, by way of executory devise or shifting use, this limitation over cannot be barred by the first taker. (c)

But a quasi tenant in tail may clearly bar his issue and the remainder over when he has the first estate, or the concurrence of the prior tenant for life, either by feoffment, lease, and release, or bargain and sale; (d) but not, as it would seem, by will. (e)

Though the quasi tenant in tail may bar his heirs or issue where he has an estate in remainder or reversion, expectant on the estate of a prior tenant for life, yet it is not decided that he can, unless he be the owner of the first estate, or obtain the concurrence of such owner, bar the limitations over by way of remainder or reversion. (ƒ) A trust, by way of chattel interest, will not prevent the barring the limitations over by way of remainder or reversion. (g)

(a) King v. Cotton, 2 P. Wms. 676. Low v. Burron, 3 P. Wms. 262. Mogg v. Mogg, 1 Meriv. 670.

(b) Dillon v. Dillon, 1 Ball. & B. 77. Low v. Burron, 3 P. Wms. 262. (c) 1 Prest. Abs. 438.

(d) Doe v. Luxton, 6 T. R. 289. Duke of Grafton v. Hanmer, 3 P. Wms. 265, n. (e). Forster v. Forster, 2 Atk. 260. Osbrey v. Bury, 1 Ball &

B. 53. Blake v. Luxton, Coop. 178.

(e) Dillon v. Dillon, 1 Ball & B. 77. Campbell v. Sandys, 1 Scho. & Lef. 295. Blake v. Luxton, Coop. 185; but see Doe v. Luxton, 6 T. R. 293.

(f) See Doe v. Luxton, 6 T. R. 289.

(g) Blake v. Luxton, Coop. 178.

An equitable quasi tenant in tail has the like power of alienation over the equitable estate, as the quasi tenant in tail of a legal estate. (a)

Limitations of freehold leases are by analogy within the influence of the rule in Shelley's case; (b) and limitations which would create an estate tail in lands of inheritance, would confer a corresponding interest in a freehold or copyhold for lives. (c)

For all the purposes of tenure and alienation, and the right of voting at elections, leases for lives at reserved rents are considered as leases conferring a title to the freehold. (d)

If a tenant for three lives grant a lease for three other lives, the grantor has an estate in reversion left in him, and not a mere possibility of reverter. (e)

It has lately been decided by the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, that the rule of possessio fratris applies to an estate pur auter vie. (f)

(a) Blake v. Blake, Excheq. 1786. Cox's P. Wms. 10, n. 1. S. C. 1 Cox Rep. 266. S. C. Cooper, 178.

(b) Ex parte Sterne, 6 Ves. 156. Forster v. Forster, 2 Atk. 259; and Dillon v. Dillon, 1 Ball & B. 77.

(c) Id. ib. Mogg v. Mogg, ante p. 77.

(d) 1 Prest. Abs. 442.

(e) Hughes v. Howlin, 1 Fox & Smith, 7; but see contra Pinker v. Litcott, Orl. Bridg. 376, who held that, if a man having a lease for the

life of himself and two others, B. and C., grants the land for the life of himself, or for the life of B. and C., this passes the whole estate and the freehold for the life in question, and that there was only a contingency or possibility that it might come back to the grantor. It may, however, be mentioned, that many of the opinions of this learned person cannot be regarded as law at the present day.

(f) Longv.Myles, 1 Fox & Smith, 1.