Hunt v. Williams

• Decision Date: 13 January 1891
• Docket Number: 14,429
• Parties: Hunt, Guardian, et al. v. Williams
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

26 N.E. 177

126 Ind. 493

Hunt, Guardian, et al. v. Williams

No. 14,429

Supreme Court of Indiana

January 13, 1891

From the Hamilton Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

J Buchanan, for appellants.

R. R Stephenson and W. R. Fertig, for appellee.

OPINION

By the Court.--This opinion, in which we all concur, was prepared for the court by the late Judge Mitchell, and expresses the views and the judgment of the court.

The first clause of the last will and testament of Cyrus A. Hunt late of Hamilton county, deceased, reads as follows:

"First. I will and bequeath to my beloved wife, Mary, * * one-half of the proceeds, from year to year, of my farm of one hundred and twenty acres in Delaware township, after the taxes have been paid on the land and the place kept in repair, during her natural life or until our son, Ross, comes to the age of twenty-one years." By a subsequent clause of his will the testator devised to his infant son Ross, all the remaining interest and estate in his lands, subject to the foregoing provision in favor of his widow.

This is a controversy between the testator's widow, who has married again, and the guardian of the minor son, the former claiming that by the terms of the will she is entitled to the possession of the undivided one-half of the land therein described; while the claim of the latter is, that as guardian he is entitled, in the right of his ward, to possess and control the land to the exclusion of the widow, and that her right is nothing more than to receive from him one-half the proceeds of the land after deducting taxes and repairs.

As will be observed, the devise to the widow is one-half the "proceeds" of the farm from year to year. The word "proceeds" is one of equivocal import, and of great generality. It does not necessarily mean money; its meaning in each case depending very much upon the connection in which it is employed, and the subject-matter to which it is applied. Phelps v. Harris, 101 U.S. 370 25 L.Ed. 855; Thomson's Appeal, 89 Pa. 36; Dow v. Whetten, 8 Wend. 160; Haven v. Gray, 12 Mass. 71. Strictly speaking, it implies something that arises or leads out of, or from another thing and in its ordinary acceptation, when applied to the income to be derived from real estate, it embraces the idea of issues, rents and profits or produce. In a commercial sense it means the sum, amount, value of goods or things sold and converted into money. It is clear that the word was not used in this latter sense. If the testator had devised the real estate to his minor son, with directions that one-half the proceeds, after deducting taxes and repairs, should be paid over to his widow, year by year, the context would make it plain enough that no interest...