Puterbaugh's Estate

Citations

• 261 Pa. 235
• 104 A. 601
• 5 A.L.R. 1277
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 720

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Construction—Gift to children of testators son — Subsequent adoption of child by son — Intention.</p> <p>1. The law makes a distinction between a natural and an adopted child. It gives the latter- the right to inherit but does not change his identity or make him a child in fact.</p> <p>2. Ordinarily and by common usage the word children is understood to mean immediate offspring or descendants.</p> <p>3. Courts are disposed to confine and limit the word children in its application, when it occurs in a will, to its natural import, except where the testator has clearly shown by other words that he intended to use the term in a more extensive sense.</p> <p>4. Under a bequest to children, grandchildren and other remote issues are excluded, unless it be the apparent intention of the testator, disclosed by his will, to provide for the children of the deceased child; but such construction can only arise from a clear intention or a néfeessary implication, either (1) when the will would remain inoperative unless the sense of the word “children” were extended beyond its natural import, or (2) where the testator has clearly shown by other words that he did not intend to use the term “children” in the proper actuál meaning, but in a more extensive sense.</p> <p>6. Testator gave his residuary estate in trust for his son for life, and on his death “absolutely to his child or children and their heirs .......in the event of my said son......dying without leaving any child or children then” over. The son died leaving no natural-born child or children, but was’ survived by a child adopted four years after the death of the testator. There was nothing in the will suggesting that so far as testator knew the adoption of a child was contemplated by his son and there was no evidence of extrinsic facts indicating that testator intended that any one not of his blood should share in his bounty. Held, (1) the adopted child was not a child within the meaning of the will, and (2) the g