Boyer's Appeal

Citations

• 224 Pa. 144
• 73 A. 320
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 743

Syllabus

<p>Trusts and trustees — Life tenant and remainder-man — Dividends on stock — Earnings.</p> <p>1. As between life tenant and remainder-man presumptively every dividend goes to the life tenant.</p> <p>2. Under a deed of trust in which the settlor transfers to trustees stock of two corporations with power in their discretion at any time to sell and reinvest the proceeds, and with power to pay over the “ dividends, income and profits,” thereof to the tenant for life, and after her death to convey the estate absolutely to her children, “dividend obligations” of one company and “ certificates of indebtedness ” of the other company, issued to stockholders and representing moneys which were deemed to have been appropriated by the two companies out of current earnings to pay for improvements and additions, are to be distributed to the tenant for life, in the absence of any evidence whatever that the issue of the dividend obligation, or the certificates of indebtedness lessened the value of the stock below what it was at the time of the creation of the trust.</p> <p>3. In such a case the burden is upon the remainder-man to show that the issue of the obligations and certificates decreased the value of the stock below what it was worth at the date of the execution of the deed of trust. Whether there has been a decrease in the value of the stock between the date of the creation of the trust, and the date of the obligations and certificates is not to be ascertained by deducting the aggregate credits of the profit and loss account at one of the periods from the aggregate credits of the same account at the other period, inasmuch as the amounts expended out of earnings for permanent improvements would have to be charged against earnings, and would leave that much less to go to the credit of the profit and loss account at the later period.</p>