Thaw's Estate

Citations

• 252 Pa. 99
• 97 A. 108
• 1916 Pa. LEXIS 577

Syllabus

<p>Trusts and trustees — Proceeding to ascertain sanity of cestui que trust — Allowance of costs — Distribution of trust funds.</p> <p>1. Where the beneficiary under a spendthrift trust is judicially declared insane, it is the right and duty of the trustee to ascertain whether he is of such understanding as would enable him to give a sufficient release for any payment that might be made to him.</p> <p>2. Where in such case the cestui que trust is subsequently determined to be of sufficient intelligence to understand the nature and character of his act in voluntarily submitting to an examination as to his sanity at the instance of the trustee, he is estopped from contesting expenditures in making the examination which he himself thus encouraged the trustee to make.</p> <p>3. The beneficiary under a spendthrift trust filed a petition for a rule on the trustee to pay him the accrued income. It appeared that the complainant had been acquitted of a homicide charge in another state on the ground of insanity. The court ordered the proceeding suspended to give the trustee an opportunity to inform itself on the question of claimant’s sanity, and the trustee thereupon petitioned the court for the allowance of a reasonable sum from the income of the trust fund for such purpose. A supplemental petition subsequently filed showed that the complainant had submitted to some extent to an examination by experts selected by the trustee, and that such experts had found in the claimant “a condition of constitutional or hereditary mental disorder...... which so disturbed......his mental balance......as to render him abnormal and make it unwise to commit any very large sums of money into his personal charge,” but did not find him insane. The court sustained a demurrer to the petition of the trustee, directed that the accrued interest be paid to the cestui que trust and that the trustee be reimbursed for its reasonable legal and other expenses incurred in investigating the question of the