Nice's Estate
Nice's Estate
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
January 17,1910:
The question presented by this appeal is the proper con
The court below held that in the use of the word “isue,” the testator meant children, and that he also intended a definite failure of issue; and the conclusion reached was that Lizzie N. Neff, the daughter of the testator, took but a life estate in the residuary estate.
In the opinion of the learned judge of the court below, upon the adjudication, and upon the exceptions to the final decree, he bases his conclusion upon two grounds: first, that where as in this case, it appears that a testator uses the words “parent” and “issue” as correlatives, “issue” must be interpreted “children.” And second, that the words “dying without issue,” when applied to personal property, mean issue living at the death of the person to whom it is given in the first instance. The illustrations taken by the court from the body of the will, to demonstrate the sense in which the testator in the present case used the word issue, make it fairly apparent that he used it in the restricted sense of children. This construction is fully authorized by the authorities cited: Taylor v. Taylor, 63 Pa. 481; Sibley v. Perry, 7 Vesey, 522; Pruen v. Osborne, 11 Sim. 132; 2 Jarman on Wills, 109.
In Beckley v. Riegert, 212 Pa. 9.1, our Brother Fell said (p. 93): “ In a will ‘issue ’ prima facie means ‘heirs of the body’ and will be construed as a word of limitation, and ‘ dying without issue’ standing alone means an indefinite failure of issue. But this construction will always yield to an apparent intent on the face of the will that the words were to have a more
The assignments of error are dismissed and the decree of the court below is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.