Estate of Tillmann

5 Coffey 387
CourtSuperior Court of California, County of San Francisco
DecidedNovember 10, 1909
DocketNo. 5,816 (N. S.)
StatusPublished

This text of 5 Coffey 387 (Estate of Tillmann) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Tillmann, 5 Coffey 387 (Cal. Super. Ct. 1909).

Opinion

COFFEY, J.

Testator made his will May 25, 1905. In it he provided as follows:

“After my demise eighteen (18) of my shares of Tillmann & Bendel shall be distributed as follows:

“(1) One share to each of my grandchildren, namely: Annie, Emilie and Nanny Schmelzkopf; Frederick Wilhelmine and Henry Hohwiesner; Frederick and Agnes Tillmann; Lieschen, Hans, Kurt, Erika, Rita and Heinz Ludwig Rohlwink.
“ (2) Four shares to my son Carl Heinrich, who although without issue, has a vocation in which he cannot acquire a fortune. ’ ’

Tillmann & Bendel is a corporation with a capital stock of sixty (60) shares, of which fifty-six (56) shares are issued and outstanding. At the time of the execution of his will the testator owned twenty-one shares of Tillmann & Bendel.

Between the date of the will and the death of the testator, the United Securities Company was incorporated under the laws of the state of Nevada, with an authorized capital of $1,500,000', of which $1,000,000 was in common stock, and $500,000 in preferred stock.

The United Securities Company is, up to this time, merely a holding company for Tillmann & Bendel.

The stockholders of Tillmann & Bendel exchanged their stock for stock in the United Securities Company. Some took preferred stock and some took common stock. The testator exchanged his stock for preferred stock of the United Securities Company, getting two thousand one hundred and twenty-one shares for his twenty-one shares in Tillmann & Bendel, or at the rate of one share of Tillmann & Bendel for one hundred and one shares of the United Securities Company.

The United Securities Company owns all of the issued stock of Tillmann & Bendel, but it owns no other property.

The par value of Tillmann & Bendel stock is $10,000 per share. In the exchange it was estimated! at $10,100, and the [389]*389preferred stock of the United Securities Company was taken at par.

Did this transaction work an ademption of the specific legacies? It did not do so, for the reason that the property dealt with has not changed in the least. The corpus of the material property dealt with was the property known as Tillmann & Bendel. The owners are exactly the same as they were before; their proportions are the same; only their title is evidenced by a different piece of paper. The property is the same, though called by a different name.

The decided cases seem to bear out this view: In re Peirce, 25 R. I. 34, 54 Atl. 588.

Testatrix bequeathed certain stock in a bank. Subsequently, but during her lifetime, the bank consolidated with other banks, the new concern taking over the liabilities and assets of the several banks without a formal liquidation, and their stockholders being entitled to exchange their shares for shares in the consolidated bank. Testatrix made the exchange, making a small additional payment in cash.

It was held that as the transfer was not a sale, but an exchange, the legacy of the stock was not adeemed.

Oakes v. Oakes, 9 Hare, 666: Testator by his will bequeathed as follows: “I give and bequeath all my Great Western railway shares, and all other the railway shares, which I shall be possessed at the time of my decease, unto my nephew, Arthur Oakes, for his own absolute use and benefit. ’ ’

Afterward, before the death of testator, by a resolution of the company made under the authority of an act of parliament, the shares of the company were converted into consolidated stock. It was held that the legatee took the consolidated stock into which the shares were converted; although he did not take other consolidated stock which the testator bought afterward and which he held at the time of his death.

This case was overruled as to the matter of the additional stock in Morrice v. Aylmer, L. R. 10 Ch. App. 148, L. R. 7 H. L. 717.

The vice-chancellor in Oakes v. Oakes, 9 Hare, 666, held that “shares” and “stock” were different; but in Morrice v. Aylmer, they were held to mean practically the same thing, and therefore a bequest of shares would carry stock. But as [390]*390to the point involved in this present case, Oakes v. Oakes has never been overruled: In re Slater, Slater v. Slater (1907), 1 Ch. 665, affirming same case (1906), 2 Ch. 480; 8 Am. & Eng. Ann. Cases. 141.

A specific legacy of stock in a corporation was held adeemed where, after the execution of the will, the testator exchanged the stock for stock in another corporation which succeeded to the rights, duties and property of the first corporation. The succession (water companies) was made by virtue of an act of parliament. But the new company was not identical with the old company. It took in other properties and derived its revenues from additional sources, and, in fact, there was a sale of the old stock made upon a cash basis, and a purchase of the new.

The M. R., Cozens-Hardy, however, cited Oakes v. Oakes, 9 Hare, 666, with approval, where shares were converted into stock; and where Turner, Y. C., said: “The testator had this property at the time he made his will, and it has since been changed in name or form only. The question is, whether the testator has at the time of his death the same thing existing, it may be, in a different shape—yet substantially the same thing”: Prendergast v. Walsh, 58 N. J. Eq. 149, 42 Atl. 1049.

Testatrix gave to her three sisters “provided they are all alive, or to the survivors of them, whatever of my money now on deposit” in four banks of New York City (naming them) “which may be on hand, and not otherwise disposed of, share and share alike.” During the life of the testatrix, she drew her money from the four New York banks. She told a friend that she intended to deposit the money in the Hoboken Bank, which she did; and it remained in the latter bank until her death.

The vice-chancellor held that this was a gift of a specific legacy, and that it was not adeemed.

“It is true that a general deposit in a bank creates a debt from the bank to the depositor. The bank is not bound to preserve the money in specie, and it can be paid by the' delivery of any money of equal amount. It is also true-that a testamentary gift of a debt due to the testator is adeemed, if the debt is paid to the testator during his life. But it seems to me that, while such a deposit creates a debt, yet the gift [391]*391of the amount of such a deposit, as money or cash, differs from the gift of an ordinary debt. It will pass by a gift of all the testator’s ready money or cash. Sir Launcelet Shadwell in the case of Parker v. Marchant, 1 Younge & C. 290-307, affirmed by Lord Chancellor Lyndhurt on appeal (1 Phil. Ch. 356) said: “Undoubtedly an ordinary balance in the banker’s hands is, in a sense, a debt due from him. Certainly he may be sued for the debt. But it may be equally true that, in a sense, it is ready money.....The term ‘debt,’ however correct, is not colloquially or familiarly applied to the balance at a banking-house. No man talks of his banker being in debt to him. Men, speaking of such a subject, say that they have so much in their banker’s hands, a mode of expression indicating virtual possession, rather than a right to which the law applies the term ‘ chose in action. ’

“In the present case the intention of the testatrix was not to give a mere thing in action.

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Related

Connecticut Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. Chase
55 A. 171 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 1903)
In Re Peirce
54 A. 588 (Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 1903)
Beck v. McGillis
9 Barb. 35 (New York Supreme Court, 1850)
Hoke v. Herman
21 Pa. 301 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1853)
Cozzens v. Jamison
12 Mo. App. 452 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1882)
Hood v. Haden
82 Va. 588 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1886)
Prendergast v. Walsh
42 A. 1049 (New Jersey Court of Chancery, 1899)
Langdon v. Astor
3 Duer 477 (The Superior Court of New York City, 1854)

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5 Coffey 387, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-tillmann-calsuppctsf-1909.