Groninger's Estate

Citations

• 268 Pa. 184
• 110 A. 465
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 649

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Remainders — Vested— Contingent — Intention of testator — Presumption in favor of vested interest — Provision for children — Form of bequest.</p> <p>1. Two children surviving- a testator take a vested remainder under his will giving a life estate to testator’s wife, in all his property, with a provision that “at her death the estate shall he divided equally, between my children, if any living, if none, to my nearest heirs, all my property......at the time of my death”</p> <p>2. The word “any” means “one indifferently out of a number,” and testator evidently used it in that sense.</p> <p>3. What the testator had in mind and intended to provide for was an equal division of his estate between the two children, and also postponement of actual distribution in order to let in the life estate of the mother.</p> <p>4. If a testator’s meaning is vague, a remainder will be construed as vested rather than contingent.</p> <p>5. When a remainder following a life estate is given to one’s heirs, the heirs living at the death of the testator, and not those at the death of the life tenant, take, unless the will itself contains convincing evidence of a contrary intent.</p> <p>6. The presumption that “a legacy is intended to be vested” applies with far greater force where a testator is making provision for his children than where the gift is to strangers or collateral relatives for the reason that, in the absence of plain evidence on the face of the will itself of a purpose to that end, it cannot be contemplated that one would intend to cut off possible surviving grandchildren, from an inheritance given their parent simply because the latter might happen to die during the continuance of an anterior life estate.</p> <p>7. The mere fact that a bequest is to divide the estate between testator’s children upon the death of their mother and happens to be associated with the creation of the remainder, is not decisive that the remainder is contingent upon the children