Willcox's Estate

66 Pa. Super. 182, 1917 Pa. Super. LEXIS 222
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 16, 1917
DocketAppeal, No. 135
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 66 Pa. Super. 182 (Willcox's Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Willcox's Estate, 66 Pa. Super. 182, 1917 Pa. Super. LEXIS 222 (Pa. Ct. App. 1917).

Opinion

Opinion by

Porter, J.,

This case presents the question of the proper distribution, as between principal and income of a trust fund, of an extraordinary stock dividend, upon stock in a corporation which formed part of the trust fund. Frederick Willcox died on July 2, 1901, leaving a will which bequeathed the residue of his estate to the Philadelphia Trust Company, in trust to pay the income of the fund to his children during their respective lives, one-fifth of the income being payable to his son, William Harvey Willcox, during his life, and the will made provision for the disposition of the remainder after the death of the children. William Harvey Willcox died on May 25,1910, and it is upon all hands conceded, that under the provisions of the will, his estate had no interest in the income which thereafter accrued. A part of the trust fund consisted of 416 shares of stock of the Union Eolling Mills Company, a corporation, which passed to the trustee and continue to be held in the trust estate. When the [184]*184testator died the capital of the Union Rolling Mills Company consisted of 5,000 shares of the par value of $50 each, amounting to $250,000, and the surplus of the company was $126,254.14. The surplus added to the capital made a total of $376,254.14. The value of each share of stock, at the time of testator’s death, was $75.25. The capital and surplus of the corporation remained unimpaired and the value of the principal of the trust fund in question, so far as it was represented by these 416 shares of stock, remained unchanged until the date of the death of William Harvey Willcox, and subsequently until the declaration of the dividend with which we here have to deal. The value of the 416 shares of stock was $31,304, and never fell below that sum until the dividend was declared. During the period between the death of the testator and that of William Harvey Willcox, who was entitled to one-fifth of the income during that period, the surplus fund of the corporation was increased, by profits which were not divided, by the amount of $149,-772.43, and it is conceded that the dividend involved a distribution of that part of the surplus, together with an additional sum, and that as the income was earned during the lifetime of William Harvey Willcox, his estate is entitled to one-fifth of whatever part of the dividend should be awarded to the income of the trust estate. This principle being conceded by the learned counsel for both appellant and appellee, we have not deemed it necessary to consider or discuss its soundness. Counsel for appellant and for appellee are in accord upon the facts and figures thus far stated.

The capital stock of the Union Rolling Mills Company was, in September, 1914, four years after the death of William Harvey Willcox, increased from $250,000, divided into 5,000 shares, to $600,000, divided into 12,000 shares of the par value of $50 each. This involved an issue of 7,000 new shares, and, in pursuance of appropriate action by the stockholders, those shares were disposed of in the following manner: 400 shares of stock were sold [185]*185to employees of the corporation at par, $50 per share; 3,600 shares were first offered to stockholders of the corporation, in proportion to their holdings, at the price of $62.50 per share, and the balance of the 3,600 shares not taken by stockholders were sold to outside parties at $62.50 per share. The remaining 3,000 shares were issued to stockholders of record on September 5, 1914, in proportion to their holdings, as a stock dividend, at par, $50 per share, “and $150,000 in amount of the accumulated surplus profits of the company”, was appropriated and applied in payment of this stock dividend. This transferred $150,000 from the surplus of the corporation to its capital stock account. The practical results to the corporation were that it issued 7,000 shares of new stock; for 3,000 of which, issued to the stockholders, it received nothing; for 400 shares it received par, these shares contributed nothing to the surplus fund; and the remaining shares were sold at a premium above their par value which netted to the corporation, in the aggregate, $45,-137.50. The amount of the original surplus which remained, after deducting the $150,000 transferred to capital account by the stock dividend, was $126,026.57, add to this the $45,137.50 and we have $171,164.07, as the total surplus of the corporation, after the increase in the capital stock had been completed. While the surplus thus seems to be larger than it was at the time of the testator’s death, it is to be remembered that the surplus is now to be distributed among 12,000 shares, instead of 5,000 shares. Counsel for appellant and appellee agree that the book value of the stock immediately after the stock was increased was only $64.26. The only evidence as to the value of this stock was as to the book value and that was arrived at by an appraisement of the assets of the company, deducting from the aggregate thereof the liabilities of the corporation; we have no suggestion from either side that this book value did not represent the actual value of the stock, the liquidating value. The corporation seems to have been one of those private under[186]*186takings, the stocks of which are not usually bought and sold in the stock markets, that it was a very profitable undertaking clearly appears from the evidence. The increase of stock and the allotment of stock to the employees at par seem to have been in all respects regular and in accordance with the laws of the State of Connecticut under which the corporation was chartered. It thus appears that the same action of the corporation which brought this dividend of 249 shares of stock in the corporation and $30 in cash into this trust fund, also had the effect of reducing the value of the original 416 shares from $75.25 per share to $64.26. The value of the original 416 shares, the principal of the fund, was reduced from $31,304, which sum had been its true value at the time of testator’s death and down until the time of the declaration of the dividend, to $26,732.16, and impairment in value to the amount of $4,571.84. The greater part of this depreciation had been caused by the stock dividend to stockholders, of 3,000 shares, for which nothing went into' the treasury of the company, but the sale of 400 shares at par to employees and of 3,600 shares at $62.50 per share, to stockholders and others, contributed in a slight measure to produce the total shrinkage in the value of the principal of the trust fund.

The appellant contended in the court below and has consistently maintained that position here that, as the sale of 400 shares at par to employees of the corporation and the sale of 3,600 shares at $62.50 per share contributed to the depreciation in the value of the principal of the trust fund, no part of this dividend can be applied to restore any part of the lost principal. The appellant’s position is that the dividend to stockholders amounted to only $150,000, that there had been added to the surplus during the time appellant’s decedent was entitled to the income, $149,772.43, or only $227.57 less than the total amount of the dividend, and that, therefore, the surplus fund of the corporation which had existed at the time of the creation of the trust, the death of the testator, [187]*187had only been impaired in the amount of the sum last mentioned. The calculation submitted by the appellant to the court below was made on this theory, and disclosed this result.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
66 Pa. Super. 182, 1917 Pa. Super. LEXIS 222, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/willcoxs-estate-pasuperct-1917.