Mauk v. Irwin

This is another of those numerous border line cases in which we are called upon to construe a will and determine whether or not the testator, who has devised his property for life in the opening clause, has defeated the effect of this provision by the use of language in a succeeding clause which confers an unlimited power of disposition and thereby vests in the first taker an estate in fee.

In Magevney v. Karsch, 167 Tenn., 32, at page 54, 65 S. W. (2d), 562, at page 569, 92 A. L. R., 343, Chief Justice Green quotes from Bradley v. Carnes, 94 Tenn., 27, 27 S. W., 1007, 45 Am. St. Rep., 696,…