## Facts

- J. Rad Lawson (testator) devised certain real property by will.
- The will gave the property to his daughter, Opal Lawson Long (Opal), for life.
- The will then provided a remainder “to [Opal’s] children.”
- The will further provided that if Opal died without any children, the property would pass in fee to Opal’s six “whole brothers and sisters.”
- At the testator’s death, Opal and all six siblings were living.
- After the testator’s death but before Opal’s death, two of Opal’s brothers died, leaving children (the respondents).
- Opal later died without ever having had any children, leaving four of the six siblings surviving her.
- A special proceeding was brought to determine title and to obtain a sale for division among those entitled.
- The trial court ruled that the gift to the six siblings created contingent remainders that did not vest until Opal died without issue; therefore, only the siblings living at Opal’s death took.
- The children of the two deceased brothers appealed, arguing their fathers’ interests were vested at the testator’s death and passed to them by inheritance.

## Issues

1. Whether, under a devise to a life tenant with remainder to her children, and if she dies without children a gift over to her whole brothers and sisters, the siblings’ interests were vested at the testator’s death or were contingent on the life tenant’s dying without issue.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed.
- The court held the limitation in favor of the whole brothers and sisters created a contingent remainder, not a vested remainder.
- The siblings’ interests could not vest before Opal’s death because until then it could not be known whether Opal would leave issue surviving her.
- Because the two brothers died before the contingency was resolved, they held no vested interest to transmit to their children.
- Accordingly, only the brothers and sisters living at Opal’s death took the fee; the children of the predeceased brothers took nothing.

## Legal Principles

- A remainder is contingent when the person or persons who will take cannot be determined until the happening (or failure) of a stated event.
- Alternative remainders following a single life estate—(1) to the life tenant’s children, and (2) if none, then to another person or group—are contingent until the life tenant’s death determines whether the primary class exists.
- A gift over conditioned on the life tenant dying without issue does not vest in the substitute takers until the life tenant’s death establishes that the condition has occurred.
- If a contingent remainder holder dies before the contingency occurs, that holder generally has no vested estate to pass by descent, unless the instrument supplies a different plan.

## Conclusion

*Lawson v. Lawson* treated the devise to Opal’s “whole brothers and sisters” as an alternative contingent remainder dependent on Opal’s dying without issue; because Opal died childless, the remainder vested only at her death and only in the siblings then living, leaving the descendants of siblings who died earlier with no share.


Lawson v. Lawson, 148 S.E.2d 546 (1966)