Codman v. Brooks
| Decision Date | 23 February 1897 |
| Citation | 167 Mass. 499,46 N.E. 102 |
| Parties | CODMAN v. BROOKS et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
H.D. Hadlock, for appellant.
Wm Gray Brooks, for next of kin of Wm. Gray.
J.B Warner, for estate of Wm. Gray et al.
J. Fox for Lucia G. Alexander et al.
The decision of the supreme court of the United States in Blagge v. Balch, 162 U.S. 439, 463, 16 Sup.Ct. 853, settled the principal questions arising under the United States statute of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 862-908), and established the fact that the money in the hands of the plaintiff was appropriated by the congress of the United States, not to be held as a part of the estate of the testator, but as a gift to individuals who were selected on account of their relationship to William Gray, the original sufferer. The gift took effect at the date of the passage of the act, and the money is to be divided among those who were then his statutory next of kin.
The principal question which has been argued before us is whether the money is to be divided as if it vested in the testator's next of kin at the time of his death, except that they had no power to dispose of it by will or otherwise, and passed to their descendants by right of representation; or whether it is to be treated as having vested at the time of the passage of the act in those persons who were the statutory next of kin or distributees of the testator, considering merely their relationship to him at the time, and regarding their intermediate ancestors only for the purpose of establishing their relationship. In other words, are next of kin to be determined as of the time of the testator's death with a limitation upon their rights, and with a right by succession and representation in their descendants living at the date of the act of congress, or are they to be determined as of the date of the act, in view of their relationship to the deceased person, without reference to the time when he died? Under the first contention, it would follow, if an original sufferer died, leaving two sons, of whom one left at his death one child and the other ten children, all of whom survived until the passage of the act, that of the eleven grandchildren one would take one-half of the fund and each of the others only one-twentieth of it. This would not be in accordance with the spirit of the act and the probable intention of congress, and it ought not to be permitted, except in jurisdictions where the statute of distributions, applied to the conditions existing at the passage of the act, absolutely requires it. In Blagge v. Balch, ubi supra, it is said "that the object of congress was that the blood of the original sufferers should take at the date of the passage of the act," and there is nothing to indicate an intention to prefer one beneficiary to others of the same degree of relationship to the original sufferer because a division among his next of kin many years ago, and a preservation of their several shares until now for their posterity, would have given him ten times as much as the others. In making the distribution the term "nearest in blood" is to be enlarged only so far as to include those whose relationship to the original sufferer would entitle them to a share in his estate if it was to be divided under the statute of distributions among such of his surviving relatives as are statutory next of kin. In Blagge v. Balch, Chief Justice Fuller uses these words: These next of kin must be ascertained as of the date of the act. Probably, in most cases, none of the next of kin, ascertained as of the date of the death of the original sufferer, were living at the date of the act. If, in any case, any of them survived until that time, it is clear that they were...
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