Luce v. . Dunham
New York Court of Appeals
Appeal from order of the General Term of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department affirming a decree of the surrogate of the county of New York upon the final accounting of the executor of the will of Thomas Dunham, deceased. (Reported below, 7 Hun, 202.) The portion of the decree appealed from was that providing for the distribution of the testator’s residuary estate.
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Appeal from order of the General Term of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department affirming a decree of the surrogate of the county of New York upon the final accounting of the executor of the will of Thomas Dunham, deceased. (Reported below, 7 Hun, 202.) The portion of the decree appealed from was that providing for the distribution of the testator’s residuary estate. The will was executed February 27th, 1868; the testator died March 1st, 1868. The testator devised and bequeathed to his wife, the homestead and all the personal property therein, also a legacy of $100,000. He gave to…
1Opinion of the CourtRapallo, J.
It is a cardinal rule in the construction of wills, that a testator is always presumed to use the words m which he expresses himself according to their strict and primary acceptation, unless from the context of the will it appears that he has used them in a different sense; in which case the sense in which he thus appears to have used them will be the sense in which they are to be construed.
This rule is so well settled and so elementary, that V. C. Wigram in his work on wills lays it down as the first of the seven rules applicable to the exposition of wills which he has formulated, as the…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Murdock v. . WardNew York Court of Appeals · 1876
- Slosson v. LynchNew York Supreme Court · 1864
3Cited by24 opinions
- Woodward v. . JamesNew York Court of Appeals · 1889
- Tillman v. . DavisNew York Court of Appeals · 1884
- Keteltas v. . KeteltasNew York Court of Appeals · 1878
- Betsinger v. . ChapmanNew York Court of Appeals · 1882
- In re the Estate of SmithCourt of Chancery of Delaware · 1929
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