Definition
De sa vie is a Law French phrase meaning "of his (or her) own life." It describes a property interest or estate measured by the duration of the holder's own life, as opposed to an estate measured by the life of some other person. The phrase appears most often in the context of life estates, where it clarifies whose life serves as the measuring period for the estate's duration.
When a grantor conveys land "to A for life," A holds an estate de sa vie — the estate exists as long as A lives and terminates at A's death. This contrasts with an estate pur autre vie, where the estate is measured by the life of a third party rather than the holder's own life.
Common Language
The phrase has no meaningful common English usage. It is pure Law French technical vocabulary with no civilian counterpart in modern English idiom.
Common Confusion
De sa vie is most often confused with — or imprecisely treated as the opposite of — pur autre vie. The two terms are structural complements within life estate doctrine, not independent concepts. De sa vie is the default and unmarked case: when a life estate is created without specifying a measuring life, it is presumed to be de sa vie. Pur autre vie is the marked, exceptional case requiring explicit identification of the third-party measuring life. Researchers encountering either phrase in historical sources should confirm which life is doing the measuring before drawing conclusions about the estate's duration or alienability.
Why It Matters in Research
The phrase rarely appears as a standalone topic in modern legal materials. Instead, it surfaces as background vocabulary in cases and treatises discussing life estates, waste, alienation by a life tenant, and the consequences of a life tenant's death. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century property law sources will encounter de sa vie frequently in discussions of Littleton's Tenures, where Sections 35 and 36 form the foundational authority cited across all three source dictionaries.
The term matters in corpus research primarily as a navigational signal. When you see de sa vie in a historical document, the surrounding text almost certainly addresses one of the following: (1) the nature and limits of a life estate, (2) the question of what happens to an estate when the life tenant attempts to convey it, (3) waste doctrine, or (4) the distinction between freehold estates of fixed versus uncertain duration. Tracking the phrase into those surrounding discussions is often more productive than treating it as a discrete subject of inquiry.
Because de sa vie is the unmarked default, historical sources sometimes use "life estate" or "estate for life" without specifying de sa vie at all — meaning the phrase's absence does not indicate its inapplicability. Researchers should not assume that pur autre vie is in play simply because de sa vie is not explicitly stated.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (both editions) and Burrill's — are in precise agreement on the definition: "of his or her life; of his own life; as distinguished from pur autre vie, for another's life." The entries are functionally identical, with minor variation in section references to Littleton (§§ 35, 36 in Black's; sect. 35, 36 in Burrill's, with the additional citation to Crabb's History of English Law at page 383). This uniformity reflects the term's stability as a technical term of art with no contested meaning across the historical period these dictionaries cover.
What the historical dictionaries do not do is place the term in the broader doctrinal context of life estate law. They define the phrase correctly but do not explain its functional significance — specifically, that de sa vie is presumptive while pur autre vie is exceptional, or that the distinction has consequences for alienability and survivorship. Researchers relying solely on these entries would know what the phrase means but not why it appears in a given document or what legal question its presence signals.
Jurisdictional Note
The de sa vie / pur autre vie distinction derives from common law property doctrine and applies wherever that tradition was received. In American jurisdictions that have codified or reformed life estate law, the Latin and Law French terminology may be replaced by plain statutory language, but the underlying conceptual distinction survives in most common law states.