LIFE BUOY. A float intended to support persons who have fallen into the water until other assistance can reach them. Those in com mon use are large rings of cork-stuffed canvas, each about 30 inches in diameter with a lifeline looped to the outer side. The wearer gets within the ring, with his arms thereon, and is sustained.
holds of inheritance. viz. the fee simple and the fee tail. Historically considered, however, it is of more importance than any of these, hieing the original form of the fee, or fend, and the most characteristic form of feudal tenure of land. See FEE.
The ordinary classification divides life estates into the 'con-entional,' or such as arise by agree ment (conrentio), and the 'legal.' or such as arise by operation of law. The ordinary life estate. erealcd at common law by livery of seisin, and to-day by deed or will. belongs to the former class. The latter includes the matrimonial es tates. curtesy. and dower (qq.v.), and a form of fee-tail estate which is no longer capable of inheritance, teelinieally called *fee tail aft, r possibility of issue extinct.' But, however ere :tied, the qualities and incidents of life estates are the same. They come to an end abruptly on the termination of the life or lives by which tl ey are measured, leaving no interest to ,leseend to the heir of the life tenant or to pass to his devisees under his will. Being in quantity, or duration. less than the fee out of which (as the expression is) they are 'carved,' the land does not Co to the State by escheat. but returns to the holder of the fee simple as a reversion or re mainder (cm.v.). Though a freeholder, the ten ant for life is liable for waste committed by him on the premises, and is subject to au obli gation Of fidelity to his landlord, the reversioner, or to his remainderman. A breach of this obli gation. as by making a wrongful conveyance of the premises in fee simple by feolIment, involved a forfeiture of the life estate to the injured land lord. This characteristic of the estate has re cently disappeared with the abolition of feolf nient and other 'tortious conveyances.' See FEoFF3tENT: FORFEITURE.
Subject to his liability for waste, the life ten ant has many of the rights of an owner of the land. He might at common law protect his pos session by the same ancient and exclusive reme dies as were available to the tenant in fee simple.
His estate is regarded as real property. and not, like a leasehold, however long, as personal es tate. lle is entitled to estovcrs (i.e. wood for fuel and repairs, and the like) and his personal representative.: are. after his death, entitled to the entitlements, or growing crops. (See E1ineE 31ENT; EsTOVER.) lle may, by the methods ap propriate for the conveyance of freeholds (liv ery of seisin, deed), freely alienate his estate, though he cannot in general give an estate to endure beyond his own. It is not uncommon. however, in creating a life estate, to confer upon the life tenant a power to lease the premises for twenty-one years or other determinate period. and a lease so made holds good notwithstanding the prior termination of the life estate. In Eng land. where life estates are frequently created as an incident of marriage settlements for pro viding a revenue for the parties to the marriage and their issue, it has been provided by statute that such a life tenant may make long leases not subject to the life estate. (Settled Land Acts. 1882, 1890.) An estate for the life of another than the ten ant himself (still known by its Norman-French deseription as an estate pour ruler vie) may arise either directly, as by a grant of land to A for the life of It. or indirectly through a convey ance by a life tenant of his life estate to another. In neither of these cases does the estate came to en end upon the death of the tenant pour (titter vie, the person by whose life the estate is meas ured (known as the ccstui que vie) being still alive. hi that case there is an unexpired frag ment of the life estate remaining, which, at the common law, vested in the first person to take possession thereof (known as the 'general (teen pant') or in a person designated by the creator or the tenant of the life estate (known as the 'special occupant'). This remnant of an estate pour alder rie is now generally disposed of by statute, going either to the heir or to the per sonal representative of the life tenant. See OCCITANcy. See also ESTATE; FEE; TENURE, end authorities referred to under REAL PROP ERTY.