Legatee
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
A person to whom personal property is given by will; the retation, a donee of personal or movable estate; but it may be construed to mean a donee of real estate, whenever a testator has plainly used it in that sense.
Den v. Crawford, 8 N. J. L. 90, 111; Tucker v. Tucker, 5 Ired. Eg. 84.
The courts will apply the popular, rather than the technical, meaning to the term " legatee " in a will, and read it as "distributee," when, aft-er looking at all the circumstances, and all the clauses of the will, this seems to have been the testator's meaning; and the alternative is between this disposition and a total failure of the dispository scheme, for want of certainty.
Lallerstedt v. Jennings, 23 Ga. 571.