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103 Mass. 293

Stedman v. Priest

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 15, 1869

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1869-11-15

Bill in equity by Daniel B. Stedman and George Stedman, executors of the will of Josiah Stedman, praying for instructions as to the disposition of his estate.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1869-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently March 2015 · most notably In Re Estate of Murphy (1909), Strauss v. Strauss (1936)

1 federal appellate · 24 state decisions — followed in 12 states

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Colt, J.

¶1Technical rules of interpretation will not be permitted to control the general rule, that the intention of the testator, as gathered from the whole will, must govern in its construction. Thus, although it is a rule that, when an aggregate fund is given to several, to be divided among them, nominatim, in equal shares, if one of them dies before the testator, his share will lapse; yet the mere fact that he mentions by name the individuals who make up the class is not conclusive, and if the intention to give a right of survivorship is collected from the remaining provisions, applied to the existing facts, such intention must prevail.

¶2We think the manifested intention in this case requires us to disregard the technical rule of construction alluded to. The testator, leaving eight children, and grandchildren representing two deceased daughters, divides the residue of his estate into ten equal parts, six of which he gives to six of his children, two to trustees for the remaining two children, and, of the other two parts, one be gives to three grandchildren, children of one deceased daughter, and the other to one grandchild, child of another deceased daughter. He divides the shares given in trust, in the event of the death of the devisees without issue, by the rule of representation. And he directs all advancements to be deducted from each child’s share. He gives to one grandchild as much of bis estate as he gives to her half sisters and brother, children of another daughter, three in number; affording the strongest evidence that he intended it all to be devised per stirpes.

¶3The children of each of the deceased daughters constitute a class by themselves, representing their mothers; and the surviving grandchildren, Mrs. Dobson and Mrs. Holmes, take the share that would have gone to their brother John, had be survived the testator. Jackson v. Roberts, 14 Gray, 546, 550. Schaffer v. Kettell, 14 Allen, 528. Balcom v. Haynes, Ib. 204.

¶4Decree accordingly.

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