White v. White

• Decision Date: 19 February 1906
• Citation: 53 S.E. 371,73 S.C. 261
• Parties: WHITE v. WHITE.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

53 S.E. 371

73 S.C. 261

WHITE v. WHITE.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 19, 1906

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Sumpter County; Watts Judge.

Action by Anthony White and others and Mary A. White against Elizabeth White and others. From a decree for plaintiffs defendants appeal. Reversed.

Lee & Moise, for appellant. Cooper & Fraser, for respondent.

GARY A. J.

The question presented by the exceptions is whether his honor the circuit judge, erred, in construing the legacies mentioned in the following provisions of the testator's will to be specific, to wit: "I will and ordain that my executors shall collect the insurance policies on my life. And from this said amount, pay the sum of two hundred dollars each to Wm. J. Corbett, Henry Corbett and L. George Corbett children of my deceased sister, Agnes W. Corbett. The sum of three hundred dollars to be divided among the children of my deceased sister, Hannah B. Kirven; three hundred dollars to be divided among the children of my deceased sister Sarah Haynesworth. That they pay the sum of one hundred dollars each to J. Grier White, and his sister, Mary White, children of my old friend and partner, A. White, deceased, and one hundred dollars each to Margie White and her brother Purvis White, children of J. Knox White."

The rules for determining whether a legacy is specific or demonstrative are clearly stated by Mr. Justice Jones, in the recent case of Rogers v. Rogers, 67 S.C. 168, 45 S.E. 176, 100 Am. St. Rep. 721. General, specific, and demonstrative legacies are thus defined in 18 Enc. of Law 711, 714, 721: "A general legacy is one which is payable out of the general assets of the testator's estate, being a gift of money or other thing in quantity and not in any way separate or distinct from other things of the like kind." "A specific legacy or devise is a gift by will of a specific article or part of the testator's estate, which is identified and distinguished from all other things of the same kind, and which may be satisfied only out of the particular thing." "A demonstrative legacy is a gift of money or other fundable goods, charged on a particular fund, in such a way as not amount to a gift of the corpus of the fund or to evince an intent to relieve the general estate from liability in case the fund fails." In Crawford v. McCarthy (N. Y.) 54 N.E. 278, the principles are thus stated: "A demonstrative legacy is a bequest of a...