Harrison's Estate

Citations

• 202 Pa. 331
• 51 A. 976
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 517

Syllabus

<p>Will — Gift to children of sisters — AeiofJuly 12, 1897, P. L. 256.</p> <p>Where a testatrix gives the residue of her estate to a trustee to pay out of the income certain annuilies, the surplus income, if any, to be paid to “ the children of my sisters, in equal shares,” and it appears that two grandnieces, children of a niece who had died before the execution of the will and were designated throughout the will as “ grandnieces” are the principal objects of the testatrix’s bounty, such grandnieces are not entitled to share in the residue, although in a codicil one of the grandnieces to whom pictures are given is designated as a “niece;” nor will the grandnieces be entitled to share in the residue by force of the provisions of the Act of July 12, 1897, P. L. 256, which saves from lapsing, by reason of death, gifts to brothers or sisters or the children of brothers or sisters, inasmuch as the act of 1897 is confined in its operation to cases of death of a member of a class to whom the gift is made after the date of the will and during the lifetime of the testator.</p> <p>The effect of the act of 1897 is to provide that where one is within a class designated by the testator as the object of its bounty the devise or legacy to him shall not lapse by his death during the lifetime of the testator, but the person so dying must have been a member of the class at some time in the period during which the will remained ambulatory, between the execution of the will and the death of the testator.</p> <p>The act was not intended to setup a new rule for the construction of wills and include as primary legatees, persons who did not come within the meaning of the language employed by a testator; its purpose was to provide for the substitution of the issue upon the death of one who was at the date of the will, or subsequently came, within the class to which the devise or bequest was made.</p>