Bair's Estate

Citations

• 255 Pa. 169
• 99 A. 471
• 1916 Pa. LEXIS 543

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Vested and contingent remainders — Rule of construction — Act of April 1,1909, P. L. 87 — Husband’s election to take against will.</p> <p>1. The law favors vested rather than contingent estates and unless it clearly appears from the context or the circumstances of the case that a contingent interest W'as intended, the remainder will be regarded as vesting at the death of the testator and-not at the expiration of the life tenancy.</p> <p>2. Where time is not annexed to the gift hut to the payment of it the estate is vested.</p> <p>3. Whenever there is a particular estate, the determination of which does not depend on any uncertain event, and a remainder is thereon absolutely limited to a perso'n in esse and ascertained, although the nature and duration of the estate limited in remainder may be such that it may not endure beyond the particular estate, and may therefore never take effect or vest in possession, it is not a contingent but a vested remainder.</p> <p>4. The Act of April 1, 1909, P. L. 87, is an amendment to the intestate laws and in the absence of issue entitles the widow to $5,000 out of her husband’s real or personal estate or both, in pref-</p> <p>erence to collateral heirs; and the surviving husband has a like right in his wife’s estate.</p> <p>5. The fact that a husband has received a portion of the $5,000 from the personal estate does not preclude him from afterwards' asserting his claim to the balance thereof against the real estate.</p> <p>6. Testator devised his entire estate to his wife for life, or so long as she should remain his widow, with a provision that if she should remarry she should then have only such interest in his estate as the intestate laws provided and the remainder should -go to his children; and on her death the remainder should go to testator’s children, naming them, or “the survivor of them, or to the legal representatives of'such as are dead, if any of them should die before my wife’s second marriage