Case ID: nys_3/html/0134-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lott, S.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In re Schwartz’s Will.
    
      (Surrogate’s Court, Kings County.
    
    June, 1888.)
    Charities—Superstitious Uses.
    A direction in a will to the executor to expend a certain sum in having masses-read for the repose of the testator’s soul is invalid. Following Holland v. Alcock,. (N. Y.) 16 N. E. Rep. 305.
    Application for the probate of the will of Anna E. Schwartz, deceased, by Joseph Bruder, named in the will as sole executor. John Schwartz and another contest.
    
      Henry Fuehrer, for petitioner. Edward P. Schell, for contestants.
    
      
      JA clause in a will bequeathing property to a person “to use and appropriate for religious and charitable purposes and objects, in such sums and in such manners as will,, in his judgment, best promote the cause of Christ, ” is void for uncertainty, and the-property passes to the testator’s heirs or next of kin. Maught v. Getzendanner, (Md.) 5 Atl. Rep. 471. But in Appeal of Seibert, (Pa.) 6 Atl. Rep. 105, a bequest to the pastor at a certain place, “for masses for the repose of my soul, and the repose of the souls of my relatives, and the repose of the souls’of the faithful of my parish, ” was held valid. And in Hinkley v. Thatcher, (Mass.) 1 N. E. Rep. 840, a bequest to missionary societies “to aid in the propagation of the holy religion of Jesus Christ” was held good as a charity. A bequest of money, “in trust for the benefit of” a certain Catholic church, with a direction that “service shall be held in said church yearly, ” is not void because of the latter clause. Seda v. Huble, (Iowa,) 39 N. W. Rep. 685.
    
   Lott, S.

In this proceeding I am required to pass upon the validity of the following clause of the will of decedent: “I hereby direct that my executor hereinafter named to have masses read for the repose of my soul, for which I direct him to expend the sum of five hundred dollars.” I am constrained by the decision of the court of appeals in the case of Holland v. Alcock, 108 N. Y. 312, 16 N. E. Rep. 305, to determine this disposition to be invalid.