Bequest
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 268 U.S. 161 - Irwin v. Gavit · 1925Most cited · 662 citing opinions
income tax exemption
the provision of the act that exempts bequests assumes the gift of a corpus and contrasts it with the income arising from it, but was not intended to exempt income property socalled simply because of a severance between it and the principal fund
How the Supreme Court has restated “Bequest”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Bequest,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Bequest”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “Bequest” — 895 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1817–1931
- ORIGINAL
For, every bequest is but a bounty, and a bounty must be taken as it is given. Positive words are not indispensably necessary to attach a condition. It may arise from implication, and grow out of a combination of circumstances which go to show, that without attaching such condition to a bequest, the primary views and prominent duties of the testator will be pretermitted.
as bounty; implied conditions
[T]he bequest to Mrs. Whitehouse was not one to be paid from income, but of a sum certain, payable at all events during each year so long as she should live... the gift did not depend upon income, but was a charge upon the whole estate during the life of the legatee to be satisfied like any ordinary bequest.
income tax exemption