Ewalt v. Davenhill

Citations

• 257 Pa. 385
• 101 A. 756
• 1917 Pa. LEXIS 749

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Powers—Construction—Intention — Buie against perpetuities— Tested and contingent remainders — Partition — Bill in e quity — Dismissal.</p> <p>1. Where an active trust is created to pay. the income to one for his life, it will not be defeated because of the failure or invalidity of the gift over of the corpus of the estate.</p> <p>2. The rule against perpetuities is directed against future contingent interests and has no reference to vested estates.</p> <p>3. A spendthrift trust may be created for a woman as well as for a man.</p> <p>4. A testator dying in 1846 devised certain land to his son James for life with remainder in trust for the latter’s children and their heirs, giving James power to revoke by will all the trusts created by the testator and to appoint such new or other trusts as to him might seem proper. James died in 1870 leaving a will wherein he referred to the power given him in his father’s will, revoked all the trusts thereby created, and devised the estate in trust to pay an annuity to his wife for life and the balance of the income to his son William, and declared that on William’s death the balance of the property should be held in trust for William’s children in such shares and for such estates as they would be entitled to if William died intestate. The will then gave William power to appoint the shares of his children “in trust for the sole and separate use of said children or issue of said deceased child and under such limitations and restrictions as in his discretion he may deem best, so as to secure the same to the said, child or issue of deceased child for his, her or their sole and separate use, maintenance and enjoyment.” William died in 1877 leaving three daughters. By his will he directed that the share of each of his children be held in trust for them until they reached the age of twenty-one years and created sole and separate use trusts' and spendthrift trusts for said daughters, and directed that in the event 'of the death