Long Estate

5 Pa. D. & C.3d 602, 1978 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 420
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County
DecidedJanuary 5, 1978
Docketno. 59
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 5 Pa. D. & C.3d 602 (Long Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Long Estate, 5 Pa. D. & C.3d 602, 1978 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 420 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1978).

Opinion

APPEL, P.J.,

— The Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has petitioned for an order (1) reforming the wills of Henry G. Long and Catharine H. Long to delete therefrom all restrictions on race and sex in the [603]*603admission of persons as residents of the Henry G. Long Asylum, and (2) requiring the Trustees of the Henry G. Long Asylum to administer the asylum in a manner consistent with laws prohibiting the asylum from discriminating in admissions on the basis of race or sex.

The petition to reform has been presented, according to the memorandum of law filed by petitioner, in view of the following:

“In their fifteenth report to the Orphans’ Court of Lancaster County, covering the period October 1, 1971, to September 30, 1976, the trustees advise that the Long Asylum has been notified by the Pennsylvania Department of Health that the home is ‘out of compliance’ with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act and, in effect, that continued noncompliance will result in denial to the home by the Department of approval to operate.
“In light of these facts, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania herewith petitions the court to reform the wills of Henry G. Long and Catharine H. Long by applying the doctrine of cy pres to strike therefrom the restrictions on race and sex in the admission of persons as residents of the Henry G. Long Asylum and to order the trustees to administer the asylum in a manner consistent with laws prohibiting the asylum from discriminating in admissions on the basis of race or sex.”

If the reformation sought by petitioner is to be effected, the language to which the change would mainly pertain is the following provision in the will of Henry G. Long:

“. . . the net proceeds thereof. . . shall be appropriated and used as a means for establishing of a [604]*604single woman’s asylum, in the City of Lancaster, in which respectable white women, from the City and County of Lancaster and [sic] indigent circumstances, above the age of forty-five years, being widows and single women, shall be admitted and maintained ...”

The thrust of the petition is the removal of the references to white, to widows, and to women. These words would be replaced by the insertion of person, individual, adult, or a word similar thereto without modification thereof as to race.

Petitioner contends entitlement to the reformation sought based on the following:

1. Fair Housing Act of 1968

2. Pennsylvania Human Relations Act

3. Civil Rights Act of 1964

4. Civil Rights Act of 1866

5. Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

6. Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Henry G. Long and Catharine H. Long were father and daughter who died on March 5, 1889, and June 18, 1900, respectively. Henry’s will provided alife estate for Catharine in certain assets. At her death, the remainder was to be used to establish an asylum as above set forth. Catharine’s will provided bequests to the trustees to “be held and controlled by them under the same terms, provisions and restrictions, conditions and regulations as my father has imposed in his last will and testament with reference to the establishment and management of the said proposed Asylum.”

It is obvious that Catharine’s gift is a legacy to the trustees which has been consummated by delivery [605]*605to the trustees. We, therefore, deem that Henry’s will is the sole instrument under which an asylum was to be established. It follows that reformation of Catharine’s will would in no way bear on the operation of the asylum.

After the death of Catharine, the trustees erected a building called the Henry G. Long Asylum. The first occupants apparently entered the asylum on October 1, 1906. Quinquennially since then the trustees have filed accounts or reports concerning the operation of the asylum. An examination of these reports establishes that the trustees have vigorously and successfully pursued other funds. By cy pres the trustees have obtained significant additions to the endowment from the Jennie S. Potts Estate and the Ann C. Witmer Home and, also, have been made the recipients of income from the Mary C. Melson Estate. Additionally, the endowment was substantially increased by receipt of the Charles G. Baker and Miriam R. Baker Fund, the former of whom was for many years an active and dedicated trustee of the Henry G. Long Asylum.

Approximately 20 years ago, the trustees petitioned the Orphans’ Court of Lancaster County for permission to invest certain of the endowment funds in real estate other than in first mortgages, as directed by the will of Henry G. Long and Catharine H. Long. The extensive opinion filed by President Judge T. Roberts Appel on January 21, 1948, states a variety of findings and principles which are pertinent to the determination of the matter now before the court. We quote therefrom as follows:

“At various times, as testified by the matron of the home, the home contained as many as 52 guests. At the present time the home houses 11 between 80 and 90 years of age, 24 from 72 to 77 [606]*606years of age, and 5 from 62 to 68 years of age. There are four bed patients. . . . Since the home was opened, 206 guests have been admitted and have withdrawn; and the present resident list is 40 guests. When the home was originally opened, it was laid out for about 35 guests, but subsequently a parlor and infirmary were divided into rooms in order to accommodate the number of guests indicated. . . .
“It appears to this court that. . . the primary purpose and intention of the wills of Henry G. Long and Catherine H. Long was the maintenance and support of a certain class of single and indigent women. This purpose and intention was a charity, and must be governed by charitable rules and regulations and principles of equity. The requirement and restriction on the investment of the endowment funds of said home ... in first mortages . . . was not the primary purpose and intention of testator and his daughter. That was an administrative feature of the management of the trust funds in order to safeguard the same in the best security then known to testators.
“In the instant case Henry G. Long appears to have been born on August 23, 1804, admitted to the courts of this county as a lawyer in the year 1827 and was subsequently elevated in 1851 to the bench of Lancaster County as its fifth president judge. His term expired on December 1871. It would appear to this court that mention should be made of the years of service rendered by Judge Long in this community in order to appreciate the great changes, socially, economically, scientifically, financially, judicially, and charitably that have occurred, not only [607]*607since a long period covered by the life of Judge Long, but from the date of the execution of his will, and thereafter for a period of half a century down to the present time. His essential purpose was charitable in character.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
5 Pa. D. & C.3d 602, 1978 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 420, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/long-estate-pactcompllancas-1978.