Cummings's Estate

Citations

• 153 Pa. 397
• 25 A. 1125
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1115

Syllabus

<p>Will — Equitable election — Compensation to disappointed devisee.</p> <p>A devisee in a will who is also the heir at law of the testator will not bo permitted to take under the will real estate situated in Pennsylvania, and at the same time to disaffirm the validity of a devise to other persons of real estate situated in the city of Washington, because the will was not authenticated by three competent subscribing witnesses as required in the District of Columbia. If lie insists on such construction, he should be required to make compensation to the disappointed devisees.</p> <p>Evidence of ownership of registered stock — Presumption.</p> <p>Testator by his will gave forty-eight thousand dollars of the loan of a canal company to trustees to pay the income therefrom to a legatee for life. At fhe time the will was drawn testator had forty-eight bonds of the canal company in a private box in the office of the trustee, whore they remained until Ms death. When the box was opened, it was found that live of these bonds had been registered nearly twenty-one years before in the name of the husband of a legatee. There was no evidence that the husband had ever purchased the bonds or that he caused them to be registered in his own name. Neither the husband nor his wife, who was Ms executrix, had ever claimed them, and it appeared that they had been continuously in the possession of testator for nearly thirty-one years before his death. Meld, that the evidence of the testator’s ownership of the bonds was sufficient to overcome the presumption arising from the fact of their registration in the name of another person.</p>