Grothe's Estate

Citations

• 237 Pa. 262
• 85 A. 141
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 929

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Legacies—Vested and contingent legacies — Time of payment — Res adjudícala — Auditors.</p> <p>1. Upon the subject of vested and contingent legacies, the rule is that where the contingency is annexed to the time of payment only, and the legacy has been given by a previous bequest, it is vested; but if the contingency is annexed to the legacy, it does not vest until the contingency happens.</p> <p>2. Where a testator by a codicil to his will provided “I give and bequeath unto the male children of my son Frederick living at the time of my death, the sum of one thousand dollars each as they become twenty-five years of age,” the legacies to the grandchildren are contingent and not vested and the administrator of a grandson dying subsequently to the decedent but before reaching twenty-five years of age, is not entitled to such legacy.</p> <p>3. A former auditor in such case, in distributing the balance in the hands of a former administrator, undertook to construe the codicil to the testator’s will and awarded to each of the three grandsons then living, including the one who subsequently died under twenty-five years of age, the sum of $1,000 to be paid to them out of the proceeds of real estate of the testator remaining unsold, when they respectively reached the age of twenty-five years, which report was absolutely confirmed by the court below and no appeal from the decree of confirmation was taken. Reid, that this adjudication was not conclusive upon the living grandchildren of the testator as regards the share of the grandchild who died before reaching twenty-five, (1) because if they were in existence at the time of the audit, they were minors without guardians; and (2) because the distribution made by a former auditor was conclusive only as to the fund that he was appointed to distribute and when he attempted to make an award to the grandsons of the testator out of the proceeds of real estate not yet sold, he acted beyond the scope of his power.