Dempwolf's Estate

57 Pa. D. & C. 271, 1946 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 157
CourtYork County Orphans' Court
DecidedJuly 1, 1946
StatusPublished

This text of 57 Pa. D. & C. 271 (Dempwolf's Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering York County Orphans' Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dempwolf's Estate, 57 Pa. D. & C. 271, 1946 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 157 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1946).

Opinion

Gross, P. J.,

By filing specific exceptions to the personalty income account, all of the items making up the above gains [from sales of unimproved real estate] have been excepted to by the trustee ad litem on the grounds that none of said items constitute income of personalty, but do constitute principal, belong to the principal personalty account and should have been included therein.

Accountant contends that under the fourth item of the will testator bequeaths to his four children “in equal shares all the rents, issues, profits and income of my entire estate during their natural lives” and that these gains are “profits” and that testator intended that they should be distributed as income.

The Uniform Principal and Income Act of May 3, 1945, P. L. 416, sec. 2, recognizes the right of testator or creator of a trust to direct the manner of ascertainment of income and principal and the apportionment of receipts and expenses, or grant discretion to the trustee or other person to do so, and such provision [272]*272and direction, where not otherwise contrary to law, shall control notwithstanding the act; and in section 17 of the act fixing its effective date as May 3, 1945, it is provided that the act shall apply to all estates of tenants or remaindermen and to all wills, trust agreements and trust relations theretofore or thereafter made or created, provided that the provisions of the act shall not apply to receipts and expenses received or paid prior to the effective date of this act.

The extent to which the Uniform Principal and Income Act is applicable would seem to be unimportant because, if testator intended to include the gains (profits) of $59,338.84 in question in his gift to the life tenants under the word “profits” as used by him, then these gains would belong to them, but if, by his gift of “rents, issues, profits and income”, he only intended to mean “income” in the strict sense of the word, then these gains would belong to principal.

Many quarrels and disputes have arisen between life tenants and remaindermen as to which one was entitled to enjoy the enhancement in the value of the assets of a trust and have left us a legacy of voluminous rules and cases concerning the respective rights of each. Historically, many of these rules were apparently created when land was predominantly the common denominator and nature itself seemed to make the division, and with modern investments there has resulted a tendency to adopt the analogy of real property.

It is indeed difficult to give a good general definition of income or profits. Broadly speaking, a draftsman can use either of these words to mean just what he wants them to mean, provided, however, that he takes the caution or care to make his meaning clear. In the interpretation of documents creating trusts and using orthodox legal terminology, what is the meaning of “profits” when used as a term therein, or when used in conjunction with other similar terms and combinations of them? Does its inclusion entitle the beneficiary [273]*273to enhancement in value or added increment realized on the sale of trust assets, or is it merely descriptive of income? Are “profits” income or corpus? Are “profits” really “a profit”?

A trustee with power of sale, hut no duty to sell, may dispose of trust property and make a profit on the sale when the sale price is compared with the inventory or cost price of a property. Under the prevailing view, 4 Bogert, Trusts and Trustees, §823, such a profit is quite universally held to go to the capital of the trust fund. If there is no indication of an intent on the part of testator that it shall go to the life tenant and, even if testator directs that all “profits” shall be paid to the life tenant, he will usually be deemed to have intended that all profits in the nature of rents, interest, dividends and other income shall go to the life tenant: A. L. I. Restatement, Trusts, §233, at page 691; and* not that accretions in the nature of realized advancements in the price of capital of the trust shall be paid to the life tenant: Kemble’s Estate, 201 Pa. 523; Neel’s Estate (No. 2), 207 Pa. 446.

In 13 Temple Law Quarterly 239, the author states:

“Where the draftsman of an instrument has in the instrument given considerable demonstration of his familiarity with the ordinary words of art, such words should be given their technical meaning. The precise force or weight of the technical meaning should be given the term ‘profits’, when so used, whether it stand completely by itself, or in association with the terms ‘rents’, ‘issues’, ‘dividends’, ‘interest’, ‘income’, ‘increase’, or combination of such terms, or an interchangeable usage thereof. The use of the words ‘income and profits’ is only due to the lawyer-like fondness for using several words where one is sufficient. An additional indication of the correctness of such conclusions may be found in the application of the familar maxim noscitur a sociis (it is known by its associates). [274]*274This useful canon of interpretation aids in ascertaining the meaning of a doubtful word by reference to the meaning of words associated with it.”

So far as our own research of the authorities has extended, we have not been able to find a complete and satisfactory definition of the word “profits” as applied in a case of this kind. The question never seems to have been before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The meaning of the word “profits” in this connection has been very ably discussed and stated by the late Judge Gest in Leech’s Estate, 4 D. & C. 1, in which he collates and exhaustively comments on all the cases in Pennsylvania dealing with this identical subject and from which we conclude that the Pennsylvania view would be such as would place us with the general weight of authority hereinbefore stated.

As a rule, testator does not intend that his trustees shall indulge in speculation with the investments of the trust res and, therefore, it requires strong evidence to show that any enhancement in the value of the trust assets is not to be added to and become a part of the principal of the fund: In re Eger’s Will, 139 Misc. Rep. 59, 247 N. Y. Supp. 527, and In the Matter of Final Accounting of Gerry, 103 N. Y. 445.

We believe the rulings of the Supreme Court as laid down in Graham’s Estate, 198 Pa. 216; Kemble’s Estate, 201 Pa. 523; Neel’s Estate, 207 Pa. 446; Nirdlinger’s Estate, 290 Pa. 457; Waterhouse’s Estate, 308 Pa. 422, and Lewis Estate, 351 Pa. 576, constitute the weight of authority in this state, and support the conclusion that “profits”, that is, the enhanced value of the assets in this trust, belong to principal and not to income.

It is a fundamental principle that the intact value of the corpus of a trust must be preserved. In the ease where the trustee acquired the shares of stock from testator their book value is prima facie their intact [275]*275value: Waterhouse’s Estate, supra; Baird’s Estate, 299 Pa. 39. See aso Dickinson’s Estate, 285 Pa. 449, Thompson’s Estate, 262 Pa. 278, and Flinn’s Estate, 310 Pa. 206. The authorities just cited would specifically apply to class 1 and class 3 of the gains or profits in this case. If, on the other hand, the trustee purchased the shares, the cases indicate that the purchase price and not the hook value at the date of the purchase is the intact value: Hostetter‘s Trust, 319 Pa. 572; Jones v. Integrity Trust Co. et al., 292 Pa. 149. This would specifically apply to class 2 of gains or profits in this case.

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Related

Matter of Final Accounting of Gerry
9 N.E. 235 (New York Court of Appeals, 1886)
Nirdlinger's Estate
200 A. 656 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1938)
Hostetter's Trust
181 A. 567 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1935)
Nirdlinger's Estate
139 A. 200 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1927)
Flinn's Estate
165 A. 31 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1932)
Jones v. Integrity Trust Co.
140 A. 862 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1928)
Dickinson's Estate
132 A. 352 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1925)
Crozer Estate
31 A.2d 147 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1943)
Baird's Estate
148 A. 907 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1929)
Opperman's Estate (No. 1)
179 A. 729 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1934)
Lewis Estate
41 A.2d 683 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1944)
Levy's Estate
5 A.2d 98 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1939)
Nirdlinger's Estate (No. 2)
193 A. 30 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1937)
Waterhouse's Estate
162 A. 295 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1932)
In re the Estate of Eger
139 Misc. 59 (New York Surrogate's Court, 1931)
Park's Estate
33 A. 884 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1896)
Graham's Estate
47 A. 1108 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1901)
Kemble's Estate
51 A. 310 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1902)
Neel's Estate
207 Pa. 446 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1904)
Quay's Estate
97 A. 1029 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1916)

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Bluebook (online)
57 Pa. D. & C. 271, 1946 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 157, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dempwolfs-estate-paorphctyork-1946.