Estate of Wengerd

Citations

• 143 Pa. 615
• 22 A. 869
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 951

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. in considering the question whether a legacy is vested or contingent, regard must always he had to the position oi the parties; and the inclination of the courts to treat legacies as vested, is much stronger where a testator is providing for a child or grandchild, than where the gift is to .a stranger or a collateral relative.</p> <p>2. The doctrine of this state, from the time of Corbin v. Wilson, 2 Ash. 178, has uniformly been that a bequest of personal property relates to the time of the testator’s death, unless a.contrary intent is clearly indicated in the will; without such indication, the court is unwilling to construe a bequest over, in the event of a legatee’s death before receiving payment, as referring to actual receipt.</p> <p>3. When a bequest to grandchildren is coupled with a provision that if any of them should die “ before the payment to them of their said share,” it shall be divided among the survivors, it cannot bo assumed that the testator intended to lodge in the executors the power, by delaying distribution, to defeat the rights of a legatee who, surviving the testator, might die before actual payment.</p> <p>4. Such a bequest of a residuary share was given by a testator whose estate might well have been distributed very soon after his death. One of the legatees died nearly eleven months after the testator, having received $200 on account: the legacy vested at the death of the testator, and was not divested by the death of the legatee before full distribution: Haverstick’s App., 103 Pa. 394, distinguished.</p>