In re Packer's Estate

• Decision Date: 01 July 1914
• Docket Number: 101
• Citation: 92 A. 65,246 Pa. 97
• Parties: Packer's Estate (No. 1)
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

92 A. 65

246 Pa. 97

Packer's Estate (No. 1)

No. 101

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

July 1, 1914

Argued April 3, 1914

Appeal, No. 101, Jan. T., 1914, by David J. Pearsall, Laird H. Barber and A. H. Wintersteen, Executors of the estate of Mary Packer Cummings, Deceased, from decree of O.C Philadelphia Co., April T., 1881, No. 323, dismissing exceptions to adjudication in estate of Asa Packer, Deceased. Affirmed.

Exceptions to adjudication. Before GUMMEY, J.

From the adjudication of the eleventh account of the executors and trustees under the will of Asa Packer, deceased, it appeared that the will of Asa Packer provided (1) The appointment of executors and trustees, to be called "trustees" (2) Regulating the appointment of successors to the trustees; (3) Devise of all testator's property to the trustees; (4) Grant of power to trustees to make contracts, deeds, bills of sale and all other necessary instruments of writing; (5-6) Regulating actions of trustees; (7-8-9-10) Regulating actions of trustees and expressing testator's wishes in regard to Lehigh Valley Railroad holdings; (11) Conferring the right upon testator's widow to take such part of his estate as she might desire; (12) Devise of testator's mansion-house to his children in certain order, and providing that upon the death of the last devisee without issue, "then said estate shall fall back into and become part of the residue of my estate"; (13) Specific devise of a house; (14) Bequests, among others, to six persons designated individually by name, the testator adding, "All of them being my nephews and nieces"; (15) Bequests, among others, $50,000 each to "my grandchildren, Sallie P. Linderman, Robert P. Linderman, and Garrett Linderman, the children of my deceased daughter, Lucy Linderman"; (16-17 and 18) Bequests to several charities; (19) Bequest of $1,500,000 to Lehigh University, with specific directions as to time and manner of payment; (20) Bequest of $500,000 to same university, with specific directions as to time and manner of payment; (21) Bequest of $300,000 to St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital at Bethlehem, with specific directions as to time and manner of payment, and with a further direction that injured employees of the Lehigh Valley Railroad should have free treatment; (22) Further directions concerning the bequests contained in the 19th, 20th and 21st articles of the will, and empowering the trustees to invest in the securities of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Co.; (23) Authorizing the Packer trustees, in their discretion, at any time, to pay, sign, and transfer to the trustees of the Lehigh University and to the trustees of St. Luke's Hospital the funds held for the benefit of those institutions, and stating that his trustees shall "control the sale of such securities (investments in the Lehigh Valley Railroad and affiliated corporations), even after they have handed them over and assigned them, if it can lawfully be done"; further providing that if the securities are not transferred before the termination of the trusts for his "children and grandchildren and their issue," then "upon such determination," the rights of these charities to the securities held for them shall become absolute and they shall be handed over and transferred to the respective legatees; (24) Creating annuities of $20,000 each for his three children, Mary Hannah Packer (Mrs. Cummings), Robert A Packer, and Harry C. Packer; (25) Bequest of the net income from the residuary estate to the three children just named; (26) "I further will and direct that each of my said children shall have the power to dispose by will, of the one-half part of the one-third of the income of the said residue for and during the period of time that the trusts of this will shall continue . . . ."; (27) "I also will and direct that each of my said children shall have the power to dispose by will of the one-half part of the one-third of the principal of the said residue, such will to take effect as to the said one-half part of the said one-third of said principal of said residue respectively upon the termination of the trusts under this will, as hereafter provided and the trustee shall pay, hand over and transfer and deliver the said one-half part of the one-third part of the principal of said residue as respectively bequeathed and devised to the persons in the manner and for the uses and purposes directed by the said wills of my said children"; (28) "I further will and direct that upon the death of any one or more of my said three children the trustees shall pay to the children of such decedent equally and annually the remaining half part of the income of the one-third of said residue during the time the trusts hereunder shall continue and upon the termination of the trusts the remaining half of such one-third of said principal of said residue shall be paid, handed over, transferred and delivered to the children of such decedents respectively and in case of the death of any one or more of the children of such decedent, leaving issue surviving them the issue of such decedent shall stand in the place of and take the share the parent would have taken if living"; (29) "In case of the death of any one or more of my children without disposing by will of the whole of the one-half of the income or principal or any portion thereof above authorized to be disposed of by will then such one-half of said income or principal or both so undisposed of shall go, descend and be disposed of by my trustees hereunder, as is directed and provided in reference to the remaining one-half of said income and principal which such child or children are not authorized to dispose by will"; (30) "In case of the death of one or more of my children without leaving children surviving them, the remaining one-half of the one-third of the income of said residue appropriated to such child or children shall be paid over to the surviving child or children annually during the life-time of such survivor or survivors respectively and upon the death of such survivor or survivors to the children of such survivor or survivors during the continuance of these trusts and the principal shall in like manner be paid over, transferred and delivered to the same persons and in the same manner as is provided in reference to the remaining one-half of the one-third of the principal of such survivor or survivors. And these provisions shall also apply with full power and effect to any portions of the income or principal of said residue not disposed of by will by my said children as they are above authorized to do"; (31) "The trusts under this will shall terminate twenty-one years after the death of the last survivor of my said three children. My purpose and will is that whatever property, assets or estate may then be in the hands of the trustees not otherwise disposed of by this will or undisposed of by the wills of my children made as above provided for, shall then be handed over, paid, transferred and delivered to my then living issue who may be descended from my said three children who shall take per stirpes the issue of each child taking only what the parent would have taken if living and the issue of each of my own children being considered a unit for the purpose of distribution. In case there should be no one descendant of my said three children then living, the property and estate then in the hands of the trustees undisposed of as above mentioned shall be divided into three parts and the one thereof shall go to the children of my daughter, Lucy E. Linderman, and their issue -- one thereof to my nephews and nieces hereinbefore mentioned and the remaining part shall go to the Lehigh University and to St. Luke's Hospital at Bethlehem in the manner for the purposes and in the proportion in which and for which I have already provided in the legacies as to those institutions including the provisions for the library." A codicil to the will contains several general directions to the trustees, among others, "To avoid any possible misapprehension as to my purposes in the said will I now repeat that I wish my executors and trustees to retain and continue my investments in the stock and other securities of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company and other companies connected with it during the continuance of the trusts under said will or for as long a period as in their discretion may be deemed best."

The will of Mary Packer Cummings, the last surviving child of Asa Packer, exercised the power of appointment given by the 26th and 27th articles of her father's will; she divided the portion of his estate which she had the right to dispose of into two parts, one consisting of 20/23, and the other of 3/23. The first of these parts she gave to the Lehigh University, the income to be paid for twenty-one years and the principal at the expiration of that time, the other she gave to trustees named in her will, said trustees to pay certain annuities during a period of twenty-one years after her death, and at the expiration of that time, the principal to be divided and paid to the "Robert Packer Hospital, the Church of the Redeemer, St. John's Church, in trust for the Church Home for Children, the Board of School Directors of the Borough of Mauch Chunk and the Borough Council of the Borough of Mauch Chunk."

The court below declared the trusts for Asa Packer's children at an end, upon the death of Mrs. Cummings, and awarded to the trustees in her will one forty-sixth of the entire principal of the Packer Estate. The appellants, as executors and trustees under the Cummings will claim to have awarded to them, for the beneficiaries of income appointed by their testatrix, three-twenty-thirds of one-half of one-third, or one-forty-sixth of the income from the entire residuary estate of Asa Packer. They...