Leavttt v. Dunn

• Decision Date: 26 February 1894
• Citation: 56 N.J.L. 309,28 A. 590
• Parties: LEAVTTT et al. v. DUNN.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

28 A. 590

56 N.J.L. 309

LEAVTTT et al.

v. DUNN.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Feb. 26, 1894.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to circuit court, Mercer county; before Justice Scudder.

Action by Jennie E. Dunn against Emma D. Leavitt and others. There was judgment for plaintiff, and defendants bring error. Affirmed.

John H. Backes, for plaintiff in error.

James S. Aitken, for defendant in error.

DIXON, J. This cause was tried at the Mercer circuit before Mr. Justice Scudder without a jury, upon a statement of facts, agreed to by the parties, showing that, under a policy of insurance on the life of Alexander Dunn, $5,000 had at his death become payable to his "heirs," and had been paid to his children, with the consent of his widow, in pursuance of a stipulation that, if the widow was entitled to a share thereof, they would pay it to her. Justice Scudder decided that by the word "heirs" in this policy were intended those who, under the statute Of distributions, were beneficially entitled to the personal property of the deceased; and, accordingly, judgment was rendered in favor of the widow. The correctness of this decision is the only question before this court. "Different judicial views have been taken 'With regard to the meaning of the word "'"heirs," when employed in private instrument to designate those to whom personal property shall pass. In some jurisdictions, it is read in its strict primary sense at common law, as importing the persons on whom the law casts the real estate of one dying without a will. In other jurisdictions, it receives a broader construction, as denoting those who by law become beneficially entitled to the property of one dying intestate, and who are to be ascertained according to the nature of the property,—under the statute of descents, if it be real estate, and under the statute of distributions, if it be personalty, in still other jurisdictions, whether it shall have the narrower or the broader construction is made to depend on whether it is used as a designation of the persons originally intended, or as a designation of persons substituted for the one originally intended. In New Jersey the word has quite uniformly been construed according to the nature of the property dealt with, and without much regard to whether it was used in designating original or substituted beneficiaries. When employed in the disposition of personal property, it has been generally deemed to indicate the persons appointed by the...