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98 Mass. 270

Bangs v. Smith

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 15, 1867

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1867-11-15

Bill in equity to obtain instructions as to the disposition of property held in trust by the complainant.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1867-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently February 1948

10 state decisions

30186718701880189019001910192019301940decided

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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Bigelow, C. J.

¶1We think it clear that the testator intended that the will should operate on the property held by the trustee subject to the power of appointment provided by the indentures of trust under which the legal title was vested in him. It appears that the testator had the entire beneficial interest in all the property so held in trust. The whole income was to be paid to him during his life, and the jus disponendi was vested in him. It cannot be doubted that the testator intended to dispose of all of his property by will which could pass by devise or bequest. He makes specific provisions by legacies for a son and two grandsons, and, after giving one third of the residue to his wife, he disposes of the other two thirds by a general residuary clause. Booking at these. provisions, it seems to us to be much more easonable to suppose that he intended that the property of v, hich the trustee held only a bare legal title for the sole use and benefit of the testator subject to appointment by his last will should pass under it, than that he intended to leave it to his heirs at law as undevised property. The specific provisions which he carefully made for certain of his heirs at law, de*274priving them of any large share in his property under his will exclude the conclusion, that he did not intend the residuary clauses to operate on the property held in trust under the indentures. The case seems to us to fall within the doctrines stated in the recent cases of Amory v. Meredith, 7 Allen, 397, and Willard v. Ware, 10 Allen, 263.

¶2The property held by the trustee under the deed from White, not being subject to a power of appointment by the testator, must be disposed of according to the declaration of trust on which the complainant holds the legal title.

¶3Decree accordingly.

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