Hess v. Singler
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Bill in equity by Charles Hess and August Eiler, executors of the will of George A. Kramer, to which all the persons interested in the estate were made parties defendant, to obtain the directions of the court.
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Bill in equity by Charles Hess and August Eiler, executors of the will of George A. Kramer, to which all the persons interested in the estate were made parties defendant, to obtain the directions of the court. The bill alleged that Matthias Kramer, the father of George A., died, having devised his property by a will, the material parts of which were as follows : “ All the rest, residue and remainder of all my estate and property, real, personal and mixed; including all of which I may be seised, and to which I may be entitled at the time of my decease, I give to my son George A. Kramer : To…
1Opinion of the CourtGray, C. J.
It is a settled doctrine of courts of chancery that a devise or bequest to one person, accompanied by words expressing a wish, entreaty or recommendation that he will apply it to the benefit of others, may be held to create a trust, if the subject and the objects are sufficiently certain. Some of the earlier English decisions had a tendency to give to this doctrine the weight of an arbitrary rule of construction. But by the later cases, in this, as in all other questions of the interpretation of wills, the intention of the testator, as gathered from the whole will, controls the court; in…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Warner v. BatesMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1867
- Spooner v. LovejoyMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1871
3Cited by53 opinions
- Colton v. ColtonSupreme Court of the United States · 1888
- Howard v. CarusiSupreme Court of the United States · 1884
- Burnes v. BurnesCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit · 1905
- Nichols v. AllenMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1881
- Temple v. RussellMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1925
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