Wilson v. Heilman

Citations

• 219 Pa. 237
• 68 A. 674
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 552

Syllabus

<p>Trusts and trustees — Separate use trust — Equitable and legal estates— Estate tail.</p> <p>Where a deed to a trustee creates a separate use trust in favor of a wife, and uses words importing an estate tail in the wife, with a limitation over upon an indefinite failure of issue of the wife, the separate use trust comes to an end upon the death of the husband, and the legal estate vests in the wife. Such a case is not governed by the general rule that an equitable estate for life followed by a legal estate in remainder do not coalesce so as to vest absolute title in the holder of the equitable life estate.</p> <p>Where a deeS. of trust creates a separate use trust for a wife for life and gives, upon her death, a fee to “the children and heirs of the body of the wife,” the word “children,” coupled as it is with the words “heirs of the body,” is to be construed as a word of limitation, and the wife, upon the death of the husband, takes an estate tail which, by the act of 1855, is enlarged into an estate in fee simple.</p>