Deeter's Estate

Citations

• 280 Pa. 135
• 124 A. 416
• 1924 Pa. LEXIS 480

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Life estate — Estate in fee — Cutting down estate — Intention—Act of July 9, 1897, P. L. 218.</p> <p>1. Where the dominant purpose shown by a devise is to vest a fee, this estate cannot be stripped of its inherent attributes by subsequent words indicating an intent so to do.</p> <p>2. But all the words used by testator should be taken into account, and where they clearly show a dominant intent not to vest a fee but to restrict the gift, it must be given effect accordingly.</p> <p>3. Where a will is expressed with sufficient clearness so as not to require the use of artificial rules of construction to ascertain its meaning, it is unnecessary to refer to such rules or to discuss authorities.</p> <p>4. Where a testatrix appoints her two daughters executrices of her estate, with active powers as trustees, and gives her estate to the two daughters “subject to the following provisions,” “that my daughters shall have full control of my estate” without hindrance on the part of their husbands who should reap no benefit from the estate except from the daughters’ wills, and should either of the daughters “die without issue or without disposing of her share by will then “the surviving daughter shall become sole beneficiary,” the daughters take a life estate and not an estate in fee simple, and if one dies without issue and without disposing of her estate by will, the survivor takes her share for life, and upon her death testate, the beneficiaries under her will take the whole estate absolutely.</p> <p>5. In such case, testatrix did not contemplate the death of the daughters in her own lifetime, but death after her decease when they had come into possession of her estate.</p> <p>6. The Act of July 9, 1897, P. L. 213, does not in such case help to decide whether or not testatrix meant to provide for the death of her daughters in her own lifetime; its only office is to determine that the will contemplates a definite and not an indefinite failure of issue at