Case ID: ny_247/html/0585-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Frank E. Sturgis et al., as Trustees under the Will of Frank Work, Deceased, et al., Respondents, v. Frances Roche et al., Appellants, and Edmund M. Roche et al., Respondents, Impleaded with Another.
    
      Trusts — distribution of stock dividends between life tenants and remaindermen.
    
    
      Sturgis v. Roche, 217 App. Div. 573, modified.
    (Argued February 23, 1928;
    decided March 27, 1928.)
    Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered December 31, 1926, modifying and affirming as modified a judgment of Special Term directing as to the apportionment and distribution between life tenants and remaindermen of certain shares of stock representing an extraordinary stock dividend.
    
      Henry B. Closson and A. Loeb Salkin for appellants.
    
      Austin J. McMahon and William S. Jenney for respondents.
   Per Curiam.

We think the evidence sustains a finding that the value of the coal mines at the date of the declaration of the stock dividend is fairly measured by the price paid therefor by the Glen Alden Coal Company, and is not to be augmented by a consideration of the price at which the shares of the latter company, when issued, were sold in the stock market.

We find no sufficient evidence, however, that the price so paid represents the value of the lands in March, 1911, and February, 1914, the dates of the creation of the trusts. We fix the value of the coal properties in March, 1911, at $40,625,000, and their value in February, 1914, at $44,187,500. These values must be substituted for the value as fixed by the Appellate Division in determining the capital investment. The proportion of the dividend to be allotted to the remaindermen in order that such investment may be preserved unimpaired will be correspondingly diminished.

The judgment of the Appellate Division should be modified in accordance with this memorandum and,' as modified, affirmed without costs.

Cardozo, Ch. J., Pound, Crane, Andrews, Lehman, Kellogg and O’Brien, JJ., concur.

Judgment accordingly.