Wills — Construction — Trusts — Absolute life estate — Rights of life tenant — Stock dividends — Apportionment.
Where a testatrix created a $5000 trust and directed her trustee to pay to the life tenant "the entire income arising from said principal sum during his lifetime" and authorized the trustee to "expend any part or all of said principal sum in addition to the income thereof for the well-being and care of" the life tenant, and provided that upon the death of the life tenant, the trustee "shall see that he is properly buried according to his station in life and shall use the unexpended income of the trust and if necessary, any and all of the principal thereof to defray the funeral expenses and income for the purpose of a burial lot"; and then provided, with respect to the remainder, "The principal sum remaining together with any undistributed income shall be divided in equal shares among" the life tenant's surviving brothers and sisters; and it appeared that the life tenant died in 1955 and that between 1928 and 1954 the trustee had received various stock dividends as a result of which 24 shares of stock originally held had increased to 176 shares and that out of the sales price of this stock $8341.90 is allocable to income, it was Held that (1) the right to an apportionment is not lost by the mere failure of the life tenant to have made claim thereto and (2) the will created an absolute life estate and (3) the personal representative of the life tenant rather than the remaindermen was entitled to the undistributed income represented by the apportioned stock proceeds.
OPINION PER CURIAM, May 26, 1958:
The decree is affirmed on the opinion of Judge LEFEVER for the Court below reported at 10 Pa. D. C.2d 545. Costs on appellant.