Joyce's Estate

Citations

• 273 Pa. 404
• 117 A. 90
• 1922 Pa. LEXIS 588

Syllabus

<p>Will — Construction—■ Children — Grandchildren— Great-grandchildren — Issue per stirpes — Words and phrases.</p> <p>1. A testator’s intention is to be ascertained solely by construing the language used in his will, and not by giving effect to a possible unexpressed intent.</p> <p>2. Rules of construction have very little weight in the case of wills, and precedents ought never to be allowed an unbending control in a case not precisely analogous or even strictly identical.</p> <p>3. A gift to children will include grandchildren, and one to grandchildren will include great-grandchildren, if from other words in the will it appears there was an intention to use the term in a more extensive sense than is ordinarily given to it.</p> <p>4. Where there is a gift to “grandchildren, children and issue of testator’s” children, the words “and issue” indicate an intention to enlarge the class so as to include great-grandchildren whose parents are dead.</p> <p>5. Words used in a will cannot be rejected as surplusage unless no other conclusion is reasonably possible.</p> <p>6. Under a gift to designated classes, the distribution will be made per stirpes if the classes are themselves stirpetal; if the gift is to a class, each member of which bears the same relation to the donor, ordinarily the distribution will be per capita.</p>