Fitzgibbon's Estate

Citations

• 272 Pa. 345
• 116 A. 289
• 1922 Pa. LEXIS 825

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Agreement of legatees as to construction of will — Widow’s election — Estoppel—Married women — Control of personal property — Husband and wife — A ct of June 8, 189S, P. L. 3M-</p> <p>1. Where a testator, leaving to survive him a widow and three daughters, directs that his estate shall be kept intact at least for ten years, unless his wife should remarry, in which event the estate should be settled, and further directs that any moneys given to his daughters or set aside for them should not be charged up against them in settling the estate, this to be in place of insurance, which amounts “they shall share and share alike in ease of either one of the three daughters demise then her share shall revert to the other two and so on to the last one left living of the three,” the survivorship relates to the expiration of the period of ten years and refers to the residuary estate, and not to the insurance fund, which testator did not intend to form a part of his estate.</p> <p>2. If, in such case, the words relative to the death of the daughters be applied to the insurance money, no provision is made in the will for either the division of the estate, or its vesting; and the testator must be held to have died intestate as to all the rest of his property, constituting the larger part of his possessions. A construction of the will which favors intestacy is to be avoided, if possible.</p> <p>3. The widow’s election to take against the will, with full knowledge of the distribution of the insurance fund among her daughters, estops her from making any claim to that fund.</p> <p>4. Where the three daughters, one of whom is married, executed an agreement, without the joinder of the married one’s husband, that all of the estate of. their father, with the exception of the insurance funds, already distributed, should remain intact, for the period of ten years from testator’s death, the daughters to receive the income therefrom and to “hold the estate as tenants in