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179 Pa. 531

Allison v. Powers

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided January 4, 1897

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1897-01-04

Appeal, No. 181, Oct. T., 1896, by-defendant, from decree of C. P. No. 1, Allegheny Co., June. T., 1896, No. 92, on bill in equity. Bill in equity for an account. The facts appear by the opinion of Slagle, J. which was as follows: BINDING OE EACTS. This bill was filed by plaintiffs, praying that the defendant be declared to be a trustee of a certain fund received by her, and directed to file an account of the money so received.

Relies on Huntingdon & Broad Top Railroad v. Decker · Lehigh Iron Co. v. Rupp · North Pennsylvania Railroad v. Robinson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1897-01-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently June 1999

7 state decisions

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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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¶1Opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice Sterrett,

¶2The facts of this case and the legal conclusions drawn therefrom are so clearly presented in the learned trial judge’s statement that extended reference to either is quite unnecessary.

¶3The first and second specifications may be dismissed with the remark that there is no error either in finding the facts recited in the former, or in not finding as complained of in the latter. The court’s findings must therefore be accepted as the established facts. The controlling question presented thereby is, whether the money recovered from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company by the defendant, as widow of William J. Powers, for the death of the latter, may be retained by her for the use of 'herself and family, or must be distributed among herself and the children of her deceased husband under the intestate laws ? This question was rightly resolved in favor of the plaintiffs by holding that they are interested in the money recovered by their stepmother, and that the same is distributable to them respectively in the proportion they would take the personal property of their deceased father under the intestate laws of this commonwealth. This ruling is in strict accord with the letter as well as the spirit of the acts of April 15, 1851, and April 26, 1855, and in harmony with several decisions of this court, *539among which are, Railroad Co. v. Decker, 84 Pa. 419, Boro, of South Easton v. Reinhart, 13 W. N. C. 389, Lehigh Iron Co. v. Rupp, 100 Pa. 95; Railroad Co. v. Robinson, 44 Pa. 175, Schnatz v. Railroad Co., 160 Pa. 602.

¶4A decree was accordingly entered declaring the defendant a trustee of the fund collected as aforesaid, and directing her to file an account of the sanie. On the coming in of that account, a final distribution, as to the respective interests of the plaintiffs in the fund, was entered; and thereupon this appeal was taken.

¶5The question involved in the interlocutory as well as the final decree, has been so ably and satisfactorily discussed and disposed of by the learned trial judge that nothing need be added to what has been said in his opinion sent up with the record. On that opinion the decree is affirmed and the appeal dismissed, with costs, to be paid by the appellant. ■

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