In re Young's Estate

• Decision Date: 17 May 1933
• Citation: 166 A. 159
• Parties: In re YOUNG'S ESTATE. APGAR et al. v. HOFFMAN et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

166 A. 159

In re YOUNG'S ESTATE.APGAR et al.

v. HOFFMAN et al.

Prerogative Court of New Jersey.

May 17, 1933.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. In a testamentary gift of personalty to "next of kin," that phrase is to be interpreted as meaning those who would take under the statute of distribution, rather than "nearest blood relations," in the absence of anything to indicate a different meaning.

2. Where the gift is directed to be divided equally amongst such next of kin, the distributees will take per capita.

Appeal from Orphans' Court, Somerset County.

Proceeding in the matter of the Estate of Mercie J. Young, deceased. From a decree (163 A. 433, 10 N. J. Misc. 27) distributing the estate pursuant to the terms of deceased's last will and testament, Joseph H. Apgar and others appeal, opposed by C. Stewart Hoffman and others.

Decree reversed, and record remitted, with directions.

Ryman Herr, of Somerville, for appellants.

Hugh K. Gaston, of Somerville, for respondents.

BUCHANAN, Vice Ordinary.

This is an appeal from an order of distribution of the estate of the above-named decedent, pursuant to the terms of her last will and testament.

The decedent by her will gave her residuary estate "to my next of kin to be divided between them equally as nearly as may be share and share alike."

She left her surviving, as her nearest blood relatives, eighteen first cousins; in addition, she left numerous issue of deceased first cousins.

The sole question involved is whether the class designated by the testatrix as "next of kin" is to be interpreted (1) her nearest blood relatives; or (2) those who would be her distributees under the statute of distribution.

There is little, if any, assistance in the solution of the problem to be obtained from the will itself, or from such of the surrounding circumstances as appear. The will was executed in 1922, nine years before the death of the testatrix. It was drafted by a lawyer of long experience in practice. Prior to the residuary clause, it contains two small specific legacies to friends, three legacies of $1,000 each to charities, and money legacies to six individuals, aggregating $14,000. One of these legacies ($1,000) is to a person who is the daughter of a first cousin of testatrix; said first cousin being deceased at the death of the testatrix. The residuary estate amounts to about $11,000.

It is argued that the bequest of legacy to the child of a deceased first cousin, without the addition of words indicating that it is to be in addition to her interest in the residuary clause, indicates that the testatrix believed that this legatee would not take under the residuary clause, and hence that the class which the testatrix had in mind as being her "next of kin" was a class which did not include the children of deceased first cousins, and hence was the class of "nearest blood relatives" and not "distributees under the statute."

It is deemed that there is no force to this argument, especially since it does not appear that the parent of this legatee was deceased at the time of the execution of the will. There is nothing in fact to show who constituted either the nearest blood relatives of the decedent or her distributees under the statute, as of the date of the execution of the will, nine years before her death.

It is also urged that the probability is that the testatrix had no close contact with, and hence no intention to benefit, relatives more distant than first cousins; and that the probability is against her desiring to divide the residuary estate into forty or fifty equal parts, as against eighteen or twenty.

The answer to such argument is that it does not appear what her age was when she executed her will, nor who or what persons were living at that time who would have been her nearest blood relatives or her statutory distributees if she had died at that time. There may at that time have been brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, and what not. There is nothing to show whom she might have contemplated as probable or possible takers under her residuary gift. Neither is there anything to show how much, if any, interest she took in her first cousins, or any one else, except such persons as she named as beneficiaries in her will; nor how much of an estate she had at that time, or might have expected to have in later years. It is a perfectly natural, if not probable, inference from the provisions and language of the will, that her mental attitude was to this effect: "I have made bequests to all those I care about, or desire to benefit, and have disposed of practically all my estate: I will give the residue to those who would take it if I left no will. I don't know or care just who they are or may be—but I'll let them all share equally."

Technical legal words in a will are to be given their technical legal meanings, in the absence of any contrary...