Reighard's Estate
Reighard's Estate
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
After devising to his wife in fee simple his homestead, together with its contents, the testator, in clearest terms, directed that all the rest of his estate should constitute an active trust in the hands of his executors, to continue for a period of ten years from his death or during the natural life of his wife, if she should survive him for a period of over ten years. If she had elected to accept the provisions of his will, she and the other cestuis que trustent would have received monthly during her life what the will gave them, but she elected to take against it, and, her husband having died childless, she acquired a life estate in one-half of his realty and one-half of his personalty absolutely.
The single question raised by the assignments of error is whether the trust should be declared terminated and the corpus of the personal estate, together with the ac
No direction is to be found in the will of the testator foi* any accumulation of the income of his estate. Any excess income in the hands of the trustees will, under the decree of the court below, be paid to the persons named by the testator as his residuary legatees, one of whom is the appellant, and she is not complaining of this, if the trust is to continue. The convincing opinion of the learned adjudicating judge relieves us from further discussion of the question before us, and the decree may be regarded as affirmed on that opinion at appellant’s costs.
Reference
- Cited By
- 15 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Wills — Trust—Widow’s election to talce against will — Effect on other bequests — Accumulations. 1. A testator dying without issue, bequeathed his estate in trust for ten years or until the death of his widow, with directions to pay her a proportion of the income during her life, and during the continuance of the trust to pay certain fixed annuities to named persons, and provided that in the event of the refusal of the wife to accept the provisions of the will, the bequests in favor of two of the annuitants should be void; at the expiration of the trust estate the property was to be divided among seventeen remaindermen. The widow elected to take against the will. The Orphans’ Court decided that the widow’s election rendered inoperative the provisions of the will only in so far as they affected her and the two annuitants, and awarded the balance remaining after deducting the widow’s share to the trustees so that the provisions not affecting the widow could be carried into effect. Held, no error. 2. Where in such case there were no directions for any accumulation of income and it appeared that after paying the annuities there was excess income in the hands of the trustees, the Orphans’ Court properly decided that there was no effort to create an invalid trust for an accumulation and that the excess income should be awarded to the residuary legatees.