Kohler's Estate
Kohler's Estate
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The learned judge below very forcibly said: “ The will of John Kohler, father of the cestui que trust, was written thirty-six years before the decree of adoption, and that event therefore was not reasonably' within the contemplation of the testator. But as he gave the estate to those persons to whom the law would give it in the case of intestacy, he cannot be said to have had any particular class of heirs or next of kin in view, and he committed the question of determining who should take to the law itself.” And it is only necessary to add that a testator who commits the distribution of his estate to the law, upon the happening of an event necessarily future, must reasonably be presumed to have contemplated the possibility of a change in the law in the mean time. McGunnigle v. McKee, 77 Pa. 81, and Johnson’s Appeal, 88 Pa. 346, were decided on this principle.
Decree affirmed.
Reference
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- Status
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- Syllabus
- Will—Change of law—Adoption. A testator who commits the distribution of his estate to the law, upon the happening of an event necessarily future, must reasonably be presumed to have contemplated the possibility of a change in the law in the meantime. Where a will executed in 1853, prior to the adoption law of May 4, 1855, P. L. 431, contains a devise to a son for life with remainder to such person or persons as would be entitled by law to take the son’s estate, an adopted daughter of the son, adopted in 1889, one year prior to the son’s death, is entitled to take the devise.