Ludlam's Estate

1 Parsons 116

This text of 1 Parsons 116 (Ludlam's Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ludlam's Estate, 1 Parsons 116 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1844).

Opinion

Tbe following opinion was delivered by

KiNG, President. —

On tbe 15tb' of April, 1824, George Ludlam made bis last will, in wbicb be bequeathed the rents, issues and profits, interests, dividends, and income of all bis estate, real and personal, to bis wife, Lydia Ludlam, for life. Tbe second item in bis will, under wbicb tbe question involved in this controversy arises, is in tbe following words: At and immediately after thé decease of my said wife, I do give and bequeath unto my nephew, James Ludlam, now of Oxford street, London, bis executors, administrators, and assigns, eleven shares of stock of tbe President, Managers, and Company of tbe Germantown and Perkiomen Turnpike Road; one thousand dollars of the United States six per cent, stock or loan of tbe year 1812, standing in my name on the looJcs of the loan office, Pennsylvania, as per certificate No. 267; twenty shares of tbe capital stock of tbe company for erecting a bridge at or near Trenton; and ten shares of stock in tbe Philadelphia Insurance Company.” The testator died in 1827. Previous to his death, tbe government of the United States bad paid off the loan of 1812, and Mr. Ludlam received tbe $1000 standing in bis name. Tbe money so received by him, Mr. Ludlam banded over to Mr. Matthew L. Bevan, tbe present executor of bis estate, by whom it was paid to tbe firm of Bevan & Porter, who were Mr. Ludlam’s bankers. This money was afterwards paid over to Bevan & Humphreys, who, during tbe life of Lydia Ludlam, tbe testator’s widow, continued to pay tbe interest thereon to her.

Tbe first question for decision is, whether tbe legacy of $1000 government stock was adeemed and extinguished by tbe receipt of tbe amount by tbe testator, when the loan of 1812- was paid off. This depends on tbe fact of this legacy being general and pecuniary, or specific. If it is specific, it is adeemed and extinguished; if general and pecuniary, it is not. A specific legacy has been defined to be tbe bequest of a particular thing, or money, specified and distinguished from all others of tbe same kind, as of a horse, a piece of plate, money in a purse, stock in public funds, a security for money, wbicb would immediately vest without tbe assent of tbe executor.” It differs from a general or pecuniary legacy in this respect, that if there be a deficiency of assets, tbe specific legacy will not be liable to abate with tbe general legacies; and on tbe [118]*118other hand, if such specific legatee be disappointed, as by failure of the specific fund, the legatee will not be entitled to any recompense or satisfaction out of the personal estate of the testator. There is another class of legacies, which the course of the argument for the legatee requires us to notice. These are legacies in the nature of specific legacies ; as of so much money, with reference to a particular fund for payment. This kind of legacy is so far general, and differs so much in effect from a mere specific legacy, that, if the designated fund be called in, or fail, the legatee will not be deprived of his legacy, but be permitted to receive it out of the general assets; yet the legacy is so far specific, that it will not be liable to abate with general legacies upon a deficiency of assets: 1 Roper, 149-50.

That legacies of public or other stocks may be specific, is unquestionable. The inquiry in all such cases must be, whether the intention to make them specific is clear; which is certainly requisite to render them so. The intention, however, is generally to be ascertained from the face of the will itself. What kind of expression is sufficiently indicative of such an intention, has frequently engaged the attention of courts, and received their decision. In Bastian v. Cooke, 5 Vesey, 461, a testator gave to his son, “John Cowling Barton, £3000 stock in the 3 per cent, consols, bank annuities being part of my stock now standing in my name, to be transferred to him by my executors,” &c. A question arising whether this legacy was or was not specific, “ a great deal,” says the master of the rolls, “ may be urged as to intention; to show that the testator had no idea of the consequence and nature of a specific legacy. But upon the will and the report, is there any ground to say this is not specific, being clearly so according to every determination on the words ?” Again he remarks: “ If the testator had sold out part of his stock, the executors would not have had to replace it: but it would have been adeemed.” In Norris v. Harrison, Madd. Ch. Rep. 280, Am. ed. 487, a bequest of “ the sum of ¿£11,000 capital bank stock now standing in my name in the boohs of the Governor and Company of the Banlc of JEngland, was held by Sir Thomas Plumer to be clearly specific. In Ashburner v. M’Guire, 2 Bro. Ch. Rep. 108, the bequest of the interest of a bond of ¿£3500 for life to B., and the principal at her decease to C.; in Ryder v. Wager, 2 P. Wms. 328, the bequest of the residue (after deducting ¿£500) of money owing to the testator by Sir M. H.; in Chaunth v. Beech, 4 Vesey, 555, the bequest of ¿£8000, the amount [119]*119of a banker’s note; in Humphreys v. Humphreys, 2 Cox, 184, the bequest of all the stock possessed by the testator in the 8 per cents., being about <£5000; were ruled to be specific legacies, and the receipt of the money by the testator an ademption of the legacy. The cases of Douglass v. Congreve, 1 Keen, 410; Kamp v. Jones, 2 Keen, 736; Davis v. Morgan, 1 Beaver, 259; Hays v. Hays, 1 Keen, 97, further exemplify the same principle. The subject will also be found to have been very fully considered, and the authorities up to that period (1823) examined by Chancellor Kent, in Walton v. Walton, 7 John. Ch. R. 257; in which he held that a bequest of a testator’s “right, interest, and property in thirty shares, which he owned in the Bank of the United States,” was specific. “ A legacy of a debt,” says he, “ unless there is ground for considering it a legacy of money, and that the security is referred to as the best mode of paying it out of the assets, is as much specific as the legacy of a horse or any moveable chattel whatever. If the specific thing is disposed of or extinguished, the legacy is gone.” In Blackstone v. Blackstone, 3 Watts, 335, this doctrine received the consideration of our own Supreme Court, and it was there held that a bequest of “ all my 250 shares of the capital stock which I hold in the Union Bank of Pennsylvania,” was a specific legacy, which was extinguished by a sale of the stock in the lifetime of the testator. The words “ which I hold” in this bequest,- were held by the Court “ to individuate the stock as a corpus” with sufficient precision to make the legacy clearly specific. This case was one of great apparent hardship to the legatees. It was admitted that the testator sold the stock only from an apprehension of danger of loss upon it; that he took a bond from the purchaser of it for the amount at which he sold it, declaring that the bond should go to the legatees in place of the stock; and that the bond remained wholly unpaid at the death of the testator.

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Related

Blackstone v. Blackstone
3 Watts 335 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1834)

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Bluebook (online)
1 Parsons 116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ludlams-estate-pactcomplphilad-1844.