Hood v. Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty

Citations

• 221 Pa. 474
• 70 A. 845
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 516

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Intention—Change of law by judicial decision.</p> <p>While it is the general rule that when a judicial decision is rendered the law is not presumed to be changed by it, but to have been the same before as after, although previous decisions may have been to a different effect, the rule is met, in the interpretation of wills, by the cardinal and controlling principle that the intention of the testator must prevail.</p> <p>Where at the date of a will it was generally accepted as the law that a gift of a life estate to a daughter and after her decease then to her children “her surviving” gave the daughter’s daughter a vested remainder, the actual intent of the testator will be considered as what it would have been understood to be by the law as it existed at the date of the will.</p>