Atchison v. United Presbyterian Board of Publication

Citations

• 266 Pa. 47
• 109 A. 597
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 496

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Trusts and trustees — Contract of trustees — Publication of bills — Use of principal — Construction of contract by party — Estoppel — Agency.</p> <p>1. Where a grantor of a deed gives a large sum of money to trustees “for the publication and sale or gratuitous distribution of Bibles, not more than one-half -which fund shall be used during my lifetime” with discretionary power in the trustees to act, and the trustees enter into a contract with a publishing board of a church denomination engaged in publishing and selling Bibles by which they appoint such board their agents to carry out the settlor’s wishes and by which the board agrees to invest the sums paid to it by the trustees in stereotype plates of a distinctive type for printing Bibles, and to pay the trustees “at the rate of six per cent per annum in copies of the scriptures at wholesale prices to be distributed by the said board,” the trustees cannot after the expiration of fifty years and after the stereotype plates have been completely used up, recover the principal of the sum paid over to the board under the agreement.</p> <p>2. In such a case the deed contemplated the use of the coipus of the estate for the purposes of the trust; and the agreement between the trustees and the board created an agency.</p> <p>3. There was no obligation on the part of the board to pay for the use of the plates after they were gone, and it was immaterial that the board used the plates for printing other Bibles; nor was it material that the parties for a time regarded the fund as a permanent liability.</p> <p>4. It is only in case of doubt the parties’ own construction of the contract can be resorted to.</p> <p>5. There is no claim for an estoppel, where a party is not misled to his prejudice.</p>