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Full-Text Articles in Law

Torts - Right Of Prospective Legatee Against Person Preventing Execution Of Will, Emma Rae Mann Dec 1936

Torts - Right Of Prospective Legatee Against Person Preventing Execution Of Will, Emma Rae Mann

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff's sister had prepared a will which she desired to have witnessed, by the terms of which will the plaintiff would have received a share of her sister's estate. The defendant, brother-in-law of the plaintiff, by threats prevented his wife from completing the execution of the will, and he acquired all of her property by intestate succession. The plaintiff sued for damages in the amount of the proposed legacy, but the court held that the petition stated no cause of action inasmuch as there was no showing that the defendant had invaded any property right of the plaintiff. Cunningham …


Wills - Class Gift To Persons Named Nov 1936

Wills - Class Gift To Persons Named

Michigan Law Review

By the terms of his father's will, the plaintiff was made beneficiary of a trust fund which the testator directed "shall be and is in full of all claim . . . which he is to have out of my estate." Specific bequests were given to two of the testator's sons. The residue was devised and bequeathed "in equal parts to my following named children" (the seven brothers and sisters of the plaintiff being named as legatees). One son who was named both as a specific and residuary legatee predeceased the testator. The plaintiff contended that the bequest to that …


Trusts-Investment Of Trust Funds By Trustee Oct 1936

Trusts-Investment Of Trust Funds By Trustee

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Banks And Banking-Trusts-Special Deposits Oct 1936

Banks And Banking-Trusts-Special Deposits

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Future Interests--Posthumous Child--Child En Ventre Sa Mere Regarded As In Being Jun 1936

Future Interests--Posthumous Child--Child En Ventre Sa Mere Regarded As In Being

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Trusts - Commingling By Life Tenant Of Personalty Not An Act Which Necessarily Requires The Giving Of Security For Remainderman's Protection Jun 1936

Trusts - Commingling By Life Tenant Of Personalty Not An Act Which Necessarily Requires The Giving Of Security For Remainderman's Protection

Michigan Law Review

T, after certain other bequests, left the residue of his estate, consisting of personalty in the form of stocks, bonds, cash securities, out of which the debts of the estate were paid, to his wife for life, remainder to T's children. The wife commingled this fund with her personal funds, negligently, but not fraudulently. P, one of the remaindermen, brought a bill for accounting and appointment of a trustee, or at least for requiring security of the life tenant for P's protection. Held, mere negligent commingling by the life tenant does not alone constitute a …


Trusts - Restraints On Alienation - Ability Of A Divorced Wife To Reach The Corpus Of A Spendthrift Trust For Alimony Claim Jun 1936

Trusts - Restraints On Alienation - Ability Of A Divorced Wife To Reach The Corpus Of A Spendthrift Trust For Alimony Claim

Michigan Law Review

Testator placed the residue of his estate in trust, and, after making provision as to one-third of the principal and income for his widow, left the remaining two-thirds to his children, or their children by right of representation, the net annual income to be paid to them in convenient installments for twenty years after his death, the principal share of each to be transferred in four as nearly equal installments as possible at five-year intervals. By a codicil, executed after plaintiff, the wife of one of testator's sons, had announced her intention of securing a divorce, it was provided that …


Wills - Election To Take A Bequest Or Devise Jun 1936

Wills - Election To Take A Bequest Or Devise

Michigan Law Review

The testator made a bequest of $2,000 to the First Lutheran Church. This bequest was to be paid by the testator's sons, who were made residuary legatees on condition that they pay the $2,000. The sons asserted a constitutional provision that no man shall be compelled to erect, support or maintain any religious order against his consent as a defense to any payment required of them. Held, the bequest was valid on the theory that there was no compulsion to pay as the sons could elect not to take under the will. However, if the sons did take, they …


Wills - Conveyance By Testator Of Land Devised As Implied Revocation Jun 1936

Wills - Conveyance By Testator Of Land Devised As Implied Revocation

Michigan Law Review

Testator devised "all the property, real, personal or mixed of which I die seised" to defendant. Subsequently, he and his wife conveyed a portion of the land he then owned to the defendant. Defendant later reconveyed to the testator. Testator never republished his will, nor altered it in any way. Plaintiffs are his heirs at law and insist that as to these lands the will was revoked and the testator died intestate. Held, there was no revocation here. The land in question passed under the devise to the defendant as after-acquired property, the language of the general devise being …


Trusts-Restated And Rewritten, Harry W. Vanneman Jun 1936

Trusts-Restated And Rewritten, Harry W. Vanneman

Michigan Law Review

Two books were published during the past year which are of the greatest importance to those of the legal profession who are interested in the law of trusts. Professor Bogert's seven volumes appeared first, followed shortly by The Restatement of the Law of Trusts by the American Law Institute, of which Professor Scott, of the Harvard Law School, was the reporter. Professor Bogert, of the University of Chicago Law School, was a member of the Institute's Committee on Trusts. Since 1927, therefore, when the Institute began work on the Restatement of Trusts, Professor Bogert apparently has been working …


Estates-Valuation Of A Life Estate Jun 1936

Estates-Valuation Of A Life Estate

Michigan Law Review

A tract of land was conveyed to H. C. Miracle for life and the remainder in fee to his four children by name. The life tenant (H. C. Miracle) together with three remaindermen deeded the tract of land to a purchaser for $15,000 on the understanding that the other remainderman, an infant, would execute a deed upon reaching her majority. The infant remainderman, however, had refused to convey and had brought partition proceedings against the purchaser in which one-fourth of the land was set apart for her. The life tenant had borrowed from the plaintiff, giving his note. In a …


The Effect Of Impossibility Upon Conditions In Wills, Lewis M. Simes May 1936

The Effect Of Impossibility Upon Conditions In Wills, Lewis M. Simes

Michigan Law Review

Writers may discourse upon the danger of construing trees to mean raspberry bushes or cabbages, but the fact remains that written instruments are interpreted with the aid of something more than a dictionary. Circumstances existing both at the time the document is executed and at a subsequent period are considered in determining what it means. This statement applies to conditions as well as to other parts of a written instrument. Nor should we be surprised to find that impossibility of performance may modify legal consequences.


Bills And Notes-Negotiability Of Bonds Issued By Massachusetts Trust May 1936

Bills And Notes-Negotiability Of Bonds Issued By Massachusetts Trust

Michigan Law Review

In a replevin action to recover stolen bonds, held that the exclusion of the personal liability of the issuing trustees rendered the instruments nonnegotiable, Lorimer v. McGreevy, (Mo. APP. 1935) 84 S. W. (2d) 667.


Constructive Trusts--Survivorship In Joint Tenancy--Right Of Murderer To Recover Entire Fund Of Deceased Apr 1936

Constructive Trusts--Survivorship In Joint Tenancy--Right Of Murderer To Recover Entire Fund Of Deceased

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Reduction Of Income Taxes Through The Use Of Trusts, William C. Warren Apr 1936

The Reduction Of Income Taxes Through The Use Of Trusts, William C. Warren

Michigan Law Review

Obviously the draftsmen of the first Revenue Act under the Sixteenth Amendment could not foresee every possibility of tax avoidance and adequately prevent such avoidance by express statutory provisions. Since the enactment of the Revenue Act of 1913, Congress has made constant efforts in each succeeding Revenue Act to close the loopholes discovered by tax lawyers. The success of these efforts has been most remarkable, particularly in comparison with the similar efforts of England under her income tax laws. Indeed, it may fairly be said that the enactment. of the Gift Tax Act in 1932 wrote the final chapter of …


Trusts-Interest Required To Support Suit For Protection Of Res Apr 1936

Trusts-Interest Required To Support Suit For Protection Of Res

Michigan Law Review

The deceased had established a trust making the trust company and one Percy S. Peck co-trustees, and Peck was also made one of several beneficiaries. The will provided that Peck should have a general power of appointment by will over the corpus of the estate, and that in default of the exercise of such power, it should go to his issue if living. The plaintiffs are the issue of Peck, who is still alive. The trustees made certain investments which the plaintiffs claim injure the corpus of the trust, for which they ask that the transactions be declared illegal and …


Trusts - Duration Of An Indestructible Trust Feb 1936

Trusts - Duration Of An Indestructible Trust

Michigan Law Review

The celebrated case of Claflin v. Claflin left in its wake a number of novel legal problems, some of which have been at best only partially resolved. One of the most perplexing is that of the duration of the so-called "indestructible trust." Once such an "indestructible trust" is created, how long may it be permitted to endure? If an attempt is made to attain excessive duration, what penalty attaches? What disposition will be made of the legal and equitable estates?


Trusts-Effect Of Gift To Executor For "Charity And Other Worthy Objects" Feb 1936

Trusts-Effect Of Gift To Executor For "Charity And Other Worthy Objects"

Michigan Law Review

A testator directed his executor to sell all his assets within five years and to distribute the proceeds to "such charities and worthy objects" as the executor and the testator's sister should determine, "remembering . . . the City of Fort Worth . . . , the City of Vancouver . . . , Parker County, in Texas, and England, places to which I have become attached." The executor proceeded to administer the estate and gave some of it to the Methodist Episcopal Bishop of Texas for the use of his church. The attorney general of Texas then filed a …


Trusts-Executors As Trustees-Existence Of A Res Sufficient To Constitute A Trust Feb 1936

Trusts-Executors As Trustees-Existence Of A Res Sufficient To Constitute A Trust

Michigan Law Review

Testator provided in his will that $35,000 of the estate be set aside in trust for the life of his widow. E, executor of the estate, being named trustee, posted bond, and, while heavily indebted to the estate, attempted to transfer the trust fund to himself as trustee from himself as executor by means of a check upon the estate payable to himself as trustee, which he endorsed and deposited to the credit of his own personal account in the same bank upon which it was drawn. The probate court, treating the check as a valid segregation of the …


Trusts-Liability Of Trust Estate For Torts Of Trustee Feb 1936

Trusts-Liability Of Trust Estate For Torts Of Trustee

Michigan Law Review

Defendants, trustees of land which had been leased for years to plaintiff, demanded that plaintiff stop removing crops from the land until the past-due rent was paid. Such a removal of crops was a criminal offense by South Carolina statute. In a suit for libel against the defendants in their representative capacity, held, defendants' demurrer sustained. Ross v. Moses, 175 S. C. 355, 179 S. E. 757 (1935).


Trusts--Corporation As Beneficiary Under Constructive Trust Of Outstanding Corporate Bonds Feb 1936

Trusts--Corporation As Beneficiary Under Constructive Trust Of Outstanding Corporate Bonds

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Revocation Of A Will By Birth Of A Child, William Lentz Jan 1936

Revocation Of A Will By Birth Of A Child, William Lentz

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.


Fraud On Special Powers Of Appointment, Amos H. Eblen Jan 1936

Fraud On Special Powers Of Appointment, Amos H. Eblen

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Wills--Revocation By Destruction, Samuel C. Kennedy Jan 1936

Wills--Revocation By Destruction, Samuel C. Kennedy

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Equity--Mutuality As A Basis For Equitable Relief, John Evans Jan 1936

Equity--Mutuality As A Basis For Equitable Relief, John Evans

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Powers Of Appointment--Residuary Clause, Harry Porter Dies Jan 1936

Powers Of Appointment--Residuary Clause, Harry Porter Dies

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Executors And Administrators-Executor's ''Right Of Retainer" Of Distributive Share Of Estate Where Distributee Is Indebted To Decedent Jan 1936

Executors And Administrators-Executor's ''Right Of Retainer" Of Distributive Share Of Estate Where Distributee Is Indebted To Decedent

Michigan Law Review

A question little noticed by legal writers, but of utmost importance in the administration and distribution of decedents' estates, is the universally recognized right of executors and administrators of the estates to retain a distributive share as satisfaction in whole or in part for a debt due from the distributee to the estate of the decedent. It should be remarked at the outset that the term "retainer" as here used is itself a misnomer; properly speaking, that term refers to the right of an executor, who is himself a creditor of the estate, to retain from its funds in his …


Assignments -Validity Of Gratuitous Written Assignment Jan 1936

Assignments -Validity Of Gratuitous Written Assignment

Michigan Law Review

Deceased took defendant, his son, to a notary and there made and acknowledged written assignments of three mortgages he owned. He handed these assignments to defendant, saying "I give you these. Put them in the safety-deposit box." Defendant went away with the assignments which reappear only after the father's death; they were found in an envelope, marked with defendant's name in deceased's hand, in a safety-deposit box owned jointly by deceased and defendant. Deceased always retained possession and enjoyment of the actual mortgage instruments. Plaintiff, another son, claims these mortgages should be part of deceased's estate. The court held that …


Gifts - Subsequent Declarations By Donor-Voluntary Self Declaration Of Trust Jan 1936

Gifts - Subsequent Declarations By Donor-Voluntary Self Declaration Of Trust

Michigan Law Review

Certain bonds were found in a safe deposit box of the decedent in an envelope marked with the words "Property of X." X sought to introduce evidence of declarations of decedent made to third persons to the effect that he had given the bonds to X before. Held, that such declarations were inadmissible because there was no extraneous evidence of a delivery of the bonds to X to support the theory of a gift. Reynolds v. Kenney, (N. H. 1935) 179 A. 16.


Taxation-Federal Income Tax-Taxation To Settlor Of Income From Trust Established To Discharge A Legal Obligation Jan 1936

Taxation-Federal Income Tax-Taxation To Settlor Of Income From Trust Established To Discharge A Legal Obligation

Michigan Law Review

Shortly before the entering of a decree of absolute divorce in favor of his wife, a husband agreed to transfer securities in trust for the wife's benefit in lieu of alimony and all other claims. The divorce decree incorporated the trust agreement. On certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which had sustained a tax against the settlor on the income of the trust estate on the ground that it discharged a legal obligation, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the judgment. After disposing of the argument that the trust was entirely voluntary since …