Merriman v. Munson

Citations

• 134 Pa. 114
• 19 A. 479
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 676

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>(a) A spendthrift, to prevent the dissipation of his estate, conveyed property to a trustee, the income thereof, after paying the expenses of the trust and the s.ettler’s debts, to be paid to his wife and children, during his life, for their sole and separate use, share and share alike, and so as not to be subject to his debts; after his death, the corpus to be distributed to his wife and children in accordance with the intestate laws:</p> <p>1. When the creation of such a trust has been rendered necessary by the folly and extravagance of the settler, and he has voluntarily and intelligently executed such a deed, equity will not relieve him by setting it aside, though it convey practically his whole estate, without reserving any power of revocation or of support for himself, beyond his incidental rights as a member of his wife’s family.</p> <p>2. If one of the settler’s properties was omitted from sueh conveyance, the fact that the trustee, although required by the terms of the trust to pay the settler’s debts, did not pay off the liens upon that property out of the trust funds, but permitted the property itself, admittedly encumbered to its full value, to be applied to their payment, calls for no equitable relief against him.</p> <p>3. Under such a trust, the settler has the benefit of a home and support, as a member of his wife’s family, so long as his conduct is such that he may properly reside with his wife and children; but, after the affirmance by the Supreme Court of a decree dismissing a bill to set aside the trust as having been procured by fraud, such bill cannot be amended so as to aver the settler’s improper exclusion from those benefits.</p> <p>4. The settler, in such a deed, is a competent witness to testify before a master in support of an allegation that the deed was procured from him by a fraudulent combination between his brothers and the trustee, al7 though his wife has an interest in the trust, when the wife is not a p