Benedict's Estate
Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Appeal, No. 10, March T., 1918, by Herbert W. Ethel et al., from decree of O. C. Luzerne Co., No. 202, of 1880, dismissing exceptions to adjudication in Estate of Thomas Benedict, deceased. Exceptions to adjudication. Freas, J., filed the following opinion: The testator died July 11,1880, leaving to survive him eleven children. One of these was Elizabeth Benedict, for whose benefit a trust was created by the will to last during her natural life.
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Appeal, No. 10, March T., 1918, by Herbert W. Ethel et al., from decree of O. C. Luzerne Co., No. 202, of 1880, dismissing exceptions to adjudication in Estate of Thomas Benedict, deceased. Exceptions to adjudication. Freas, J., filed the following opinion: The testator died July 11,1880, leaving to survive him eleven children. One of these was Elizabeth Benedict, for whose benefit a trust was created by the will to last during her natural life. She died January 22, 1915, and the trust so created then terminated. The corpus of the trust estate is now before us for distribution to the…
1Opinion of the Court
Per Curiam,
While it is true that we must search for the intent of the testator only within the four corners of his will when we come to consider it and interpret its meaning, we must do so in the light of all the circumstances by which he was surrounded when he made it, and by which he was probably influenced: Hermann’s Est., 220 Pa. 52. Where the words of the will are free from ambiguity and the intention is plainly manifest through the use of apt words, the courts will not attempt to reform the testator’s disposition of his property by substituting their ideas for his in a distribution of…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Hermann's EstateSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1908
3Cited by6 opinions
- Vandergrift EstateSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1962
- Bomberger EstateSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1943
- Straus EstateSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1944
- Hope EstatePennsylvania Orphans' Court, Philadelphia County · 1959
- Schmalzried's EstatePennsylvania Orphans' Court, Philadelphia County · 1936
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