Case ID: me_108/html/0565-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Henry Lord, Executor, vs. Mary W. Pearson et als.
    Penobscot County.
    Decided March 1, 1912.
    Bill in equity for the construction of the last will and testament of Sarah C. Barker, late of Bangor. Reported to the Law Court for determination. The rescript says: "1. Where a testator makes an unlimited bequest and devise of property to one, with an unqualified and unrestricted power of disposal thereof in the donee, an absolute estate passes to the donee, and any attempted limitation over of such portion thereof as may remain unexpended at the donee’s death, is repugnant and void. Bradley v. Warren, 104 Maine, 423.
    "2. The will of Sarah C. Barker, after appropriating $300 for the perpetual care of certain cemetery lots, contained this clause:
    " ‘All the rest of my property, I give, bequeath and devise to my beloved nephew, Paul Amory Battles, of Bangor, and I desire that he use as much of it as he needs or wishes to, even if he spends the whole of it. I do not wish to restrict him, in any way, in the use of it, but if, at the time of his decease, the principal remains unexpended, I wish it to be distributed in the following manner.
    ‘To Miss Nancy W. Stacey, $1000.00’
    "(Then follows the names of various persons and against each name a specified amount of money in figures.)
    " ‘There may be some remainder after these bequests are paid, if so I desire it to be given in trust to Mrs. Geo. H. Fox and her daughter, Miss Madeline S. Fox, to be used in the ways I have indicated to them.’
    "The will was duly approved and allowed March 15, 1911. Paul A. Battles died March 29, 1911.
    "Held: That under the provisions of the clause of the will quoted an absolute estate passed to Paul A. Battles in and to all the ‘rest’ of the property of the testatrix as therein referred to.
    Decree accordingly.”
    
      E. C. Ryder, for plaintiff.
    
      Hugh R. Chaplin, for Clarissa A. Battles and for himself as executor of the last will of Paul A. Battles.
    
      Matthew Laughlin, for all other defendants.