Peoples Sav. Bank v. Denig

Citations

• 131 Pa. 241
• 25 W.N.C. 293
• 18 A. 1083
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1104

Syllabus

<p>[To bo reported.]</p> <p>1. To refer the jury to tbe general charge for answers to points presented by the parties, is a bad practice, which may hereafter be treated as of itself ground for reversal; the remarks of Mr. Justice Paxson in Huddleston v. West Bellevue Bor., Ill Pa. 110, and of Mr. Justice Williams in Duncan v. Sherman, 121 Pa. 520, condemning this practice, reiterated and emphasized.</p> <p>2. AVliilo it is not in all cases necessary to answer specifically every one of a series of points, it is necessary to instruct the jury upon the legal rule controlling the questions suggested by the points; if, for answer to a point which is well put, the jury are referred to the general charge, and it does not in fact answer the point, this alone is a sufficient reason for reversal.</p> <p>3. A devise of land in trust to permit a married woman to occupy and enjoy it for her separate use, free from the control and debts'of her husband, during her natural life, and at her death the land to descend to the issue of her body, -with power in the trustee to extinguish the trust at his discretion, creates a separate use trust in her favor, with remainder to the issue of her body.*</p> <p>4. Such a trust becomes executed upon the death of the husband or the divorce of the parties, but, except as otherwise provided in the instrument creating it, nothing short of death or divorce will effect this result; and an extinguishment of it will not be produced by the husband’s desertion of the wife, though the circumstances be such as to constitute her a feme sole trader.</p> <p>5. It is to be regretted that the feme sole trader act of May 4, 1855, P. L. 430, permits such a loose practice as the claiming of its benefits without obtaining an adjudication or decree establishing the facts upon which the man'ied woman’s right to exercise the powers conferred by it is based, and the act should not be extended by implication to cases not fairly coming within it: per Mr. Chief Justice Pa