Case Name: Florence L. Pimel, Respondent, v. Christopher Betjemann as Executor of John Bahrenburg, Appellant
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1905-11-28
Citations: 183 N.Y. 194
Docket Number: 
Parties: Florence L. Pimel, Respondent, v. Christopher Betjemann as Executor of John Bahrenburg, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 183
Pages: 194–207

Head Matter:
Florence L. Pimel, Respondent, v. Christopher Betjemann as Executor of John Bahrenburg, Appellant.
1. Will—Bequest to Class Includes Only Members Living When Will Is Made. A bequest, to a class does not include persons dead before the making of the will, who, had they survived until that time, would have fallen within the description given to the class, in the absence of something in the will or surrounding circumstances to show-a different intent.
2. Same — Lapsed Legacy. A direction to executors, by a testator with knowledge of the death of one of his children, “ to pay to each of my children who shall have arrived at the age of twenty-one years the sum of (§500.) Five hundred dollars as soon after m.y decease as my executors conveniently can,” is a bequest to a class and indicates no intent upon the part of the testator that the issue of the deceased child should share therein; a daughter of the deceased child is not entitled, therefore, under section 52 of the Revised Statutes relating to lapsed legacies (2 R. S. 66), to the legacy her mother would have had had she lived.
(Argued October 6, 1905;
decided November 28, 1905.)
Pimel v. Betjemann, 99 App. Div. 559, reversed.
Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered December 20, 1904, affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a decision of the court on trial at Special Term.
¿ dm Bahrenbnrg, a resident of the city of Brooklyn, died on the 25th of February, 1889, leaving a last will and testament, dated May 17th, 1887, whereby he gave his residuary estate in trust for various purposes, and among them,
“ 1. To pay to each of my children who shall háve arrived at the age of 21 years, the sum of (§500) Five hundred dollars as soon after my decease as my executors conveniently can. * * *
“ 3. To pay each of my sons and daughters, who shall be minors at the time of my decease, the sum of (§500) Five hundred dollars when he or she shall arrive at the age of twenty-one years.”
When he made his will he had eleven children, only three of whom were over 21 years of ago. One daughter, born June 27th, 1800, had died on the 10th of July, 1882, leaving the plaintiff, who .was born July 4th, 1882, her only child surviving. The testator knew that Ins said daughter was dead, and tliat the plaintiff was living at the date of his will. This action was brought to recover the legacy of §500 bequeathed by him to each of his children, upon the theory that as the plaintiff survived the testator while her mother died during his lifetime, the legacy did not lapse, but vested in her under the statute relating to. lapsed legacies. That statute is as follows: ’ •
“Whenever any estate, real or personal, shall be devised or bequeathed to a child or other descendant of the testator, and such legatee or devisee shall die during the lifetime of the testator, leaving a child or other descendant who shall survive such testator, such devise or legacy shall not lapse, but the property so devised or bequeathed shall vest in the surviving child or other descendant of the legatee or devisee, as if such legatee or devisee had survived the testator and ha¿ died intestate.” (2 R. S. 66, § 52.)
The judgment rendered by the trial court in favor of the plaintiff having been unanimously affirmed by the Appellate Division, the defendant, executor, appealed to this court.
Andrew Van Thun, Jr., for appellant.
The plaintiff cannot recover in this action unless she brings her case within the statute providing against the lapsing of devises and legacies to descendants. She must establish that the sum of $500 was bequeathed to her mother, to which she is entitled, as her descendant, under the statute. (2 R. S. 66, § 52.) A logical construction of the statute would seem to require that the legatee be alive at the time of the malting of the will on the theory that a legacy cannot be given to a deceased person. (Van Beuren v. Dash, 30 N. Y. 393; Matter of Wells, 113 N. Y. 396; Almy v. Jones, 17 R. I. 265; Downing v. Marshall, 88 N. W. Rep. 1064; Howland v. Slade, 155 Mass. 415; Matter of Paine, 176 Mass. 242; Lee v. Gay, 155 Mass. 423.) The effect of the statute is to incorporate into a will, silent on the subject, a clause of substitution by which a legacy given to a child, who may have died intermediate the making of the will and the death of the testator, passes to the issue of such legatee as substitutionary legatees in order to carry out the presumed intention of the testator. (Palmer v. Dunham, 125 N. Y. 68; Matter of Crawford, 113 N. Y. 366 ; Westcott v. Higgins, 42 App. Div. 69; 169 N. Y. 582; 2 Jarman on Wills [6th ed.], *1584-1588.)
Thomas Kelby for respondent.
The legacy is saved to the issue of the child named as legatee although such child were dead at the date of the will. (Barnes v. Huson, 60 Barb. 598 ; Barkworth v. Young, 4 Drewry, 1; Wisden v. Wisden, 2 S. & G. 404; Winter v. Winter, 5 Hare, 306; Nutter v. Vickery, 64 Me. 490; Minter's Appeal, 40 Penn. St. 111; Mower v. Orr, 7 Hare, 473; Moses v. Allen, 81 Me. 268; Bray v. Pullen, 84 Me. 185; Jamison v. Hay, 46 Mo. 546.; Redfield’s Surr. Pr. 636, § 764; Darden v. Harrill, 10 Lea [Tenn.], 421; Matter of Hafner, 45 App. Div. 549.) Where the legatees are referred, to by terms of relationship instead of being mentioned by name in a will the descendants of any of them who had died before the date of the will take thereunder. (Moses v. Allen, 81 Me. 268 ; Matter of Bradley, 166 Penn. St. 300; Stockbridge Case, 145 Mass. 517; IIowland v. Slade, 155 Mass. 415.)

Opinion:
Cullen, Ch. J.
I agree with Judge Vann that the provision of the statute (2 R. S. 66, § 52) applies to a case where a legacy is given to a person dead at the time of making the will. Indeed, I find but two jurisdictions, Rhode Island and Maryland, in which a contrary rule obtains. (Almy v. Jones, 17 R. I. 265; Billingsley v. Tongue, 9 Md. 575.) But the question remains whether the will of the testator did give the mother of the plaintiff a legacy, and this is the real question in this case; that is to say, whether the gift to the testator's children included a child deceased before making the will. The question is not as to the effect of the statute,' but as to the intent of the testator. Before discussing the question on principle I shall review the state of the authorities and, of course, in such review, refer only to those jurisdictions in which fit is held that a legacy to a child deceased at the making of the will falls within the statute.
The revisers' note to section 52 states that it was taken from a statute of Massachusetts on the subject. How, as I read the decisions, the -law in Massachusetts is not that a gift to a deceased relative is void and without the statute. In Rowland v. Slade (155 Mass. 415), the leading case in that state on the subject, the decision that under a gift to " all my first cousins," the issue of first cousins deceased before the making of the will could not take, while the issue of those who died intermediate the will of the testator and his death could take, proceeded not on the principle that a legacy to a dead person was void, but on the ground that under well-settled authority such a gift indicated no intention on the part of the testator to include cousins already deceased. In Georgia the decisions are in harmony with those of Massachusetts. In Cheney v. Selman (71 Ga. 384) it was held that a legacy to a person dead at the time of the making of the will was not void but went to his issue. But in Davie v. Wynn (80 Ga. 673), the devise being to the nephews and nieces of the testator, it was held that the issue of two nieces who had died prior to the making of the will could not take because, on account of their previous death, they did not fall within the class to whom the testator had given his property. It was said in substance there that the question was the construction of the will, not the effect of the statute. The same doctrine was held in Tolbert v. Burns (82 Ga. 213). To the same effect is Downing v. Nicholson (115 Iowa, 493), where the learned court conceded that if the gift had been to an individual by name, the decision would have been different. In England the statute (1 Yict. ch. 26) differs from our own in sending the legacy to the personal representatives of the deceased legatee instead of the substitutional gift to the legatee's issue provided by our statute. This does not affect, however, the question before us, which is substantially the same under both statutes. The rule in England is the same as that which prevails in the most of our states, that it is immaterial whether the death of the legatee happens before or after the date of the will. (1 Jarman on Wills, 323.) But it seems that it is also the settled rule there that where a gift is to a class the statute does not apply. (Olney v. Bates, 3 Drewry, 319.) It was observed by the vice-chancellor : " The intention of the legislature was to provide against lapse merely, not to alter the construction which is to be put on any will." (To the same effect see, also, Browne v. Hammond, Johnson, 210; Harvey v. Gillow, Law Journal Rep. [62 Chanc. Div.] p. 328.) On the other hand it lias been held in Maine (Nutter v. Vickery, 64 Me. 490; Moses v. Allen, 81 Me. 268) and in Missouri (Guitar v. Gordon, 17 Mo. 408; Jamison v. Hay, 46 Mo. 546) that the issue of a class who are deceased at the time of the execution of a will take under the statute the same as the issue of those who die subsequently but before the testator. These are the only authorities on the precise question which I can find. The Kentucky case (Chenault v. Chenault, 9 S. W. Rep. 775) is not in point because the decision was based not on the statute as originally enacted in that state, substantially in the same- form as our own, but under two sections subsequently added, which have no existence either in form or substance in* our legislation. All the case of Barnes v. Huson (60 Barb. 598), in the Supreme Court of this state, decides is that where a legacy or devise is given to a dead child in express .terms the legacy under the statute is not void .nor does it lapse but goes to the issue of the child. This is simply what I have said is the rule in most jurisdictions. Wilberger v. Cheek (94 Va. 517) is to the same effect. There the deceased legatee was expressly named, and so far as the opinion relates to bequests to a class under another clause of the will it does not in any respect deal with the question before us.
It seems to me, therefore, that the clear weight of authority is in favor of the proposition that a bequest to a class does not include persons dead before the making of the will; who, had they survived till that time, would have fallen within the description given to the class, of course, in the absence of something in the will or surrounding circumstances to show a different intent. There can be no question as tc the evil intended to be remedied by this legislation. It was to abrogate in the case of the death of a child before that of the testator the common-law rule that a devise or legacy to him lapsed and to substitute the children of the deceased child for. the primary object of the testatops bounty. This is recognized in all the cases and text books, where it is often said that many testators are ignorant of'the common- law rule, and in most cases the rule operates to defeat the intention of the testator. As was observed in the English' cases cited it was not enacted to change the construction to be given wills. In the opinion delivered in Nutter v. Vickery (supra) it is said that the argument against including children or relatives deceased, at the time of making the will, is based upon the ' distinction between lapsed and void devises and the assumption that the statute takes effect only in case of lapsed legacies. The learned court, I think, i as here fallen into error, for, as I have shown in several jurisdictions which hold that void legacies equally with lapsed legacies fall within the statute, it also held that in the case of a gift to a class persons who have predeceased the execution of the will are not members of the class. This rule accords with the actual intent of testators. Nothing is better settled in the law of wills than that the term "children" does not include grandchildren or more remote descendants, unless there is something in the will to show that the word was used in a broader sense. This is not • based on any technical rule of law ; on the contrary, it is founded on the ordinary meaning of the word and the presumption that the testator has used the term in its ordinary sense. The decision below overturns this rule and declares that a devise or bequest to children of the testator includes grandchildren. The distinction between a dead child expressly named or otherwise identified in a will and one who must take under the designation of a class seems to me very plain. Where the testator names the deceased child there can be no room for doubt that he intends him or his issue to take, and the statute gives effect to that intent. Where, however, a testator writes or speaks of his children in general terms he does not include grandchildren. So the courts have uniformly held, and such, I think, the experience of all of us will confirm as being the actual fact. So, also, there is a plain distinction between the death of a member of a class subsequent to making the will and a death prior to that time. In the first case it is both possible and probable, unless some provision for the contin gency is made in the will, that the testator did not anticipate its occurrence. In the latter the occurrence is not contingent but has actually happened, and, therefore, the fact is necessarily present in the testator's mind except in some exceptional case. Take the present case. The plaintiff's mother had died five years before the will was made and of her death the testator was entirely aware. If he had intended to leave a legacy to his grandchild he would have said so, instead of leaving his intention to be worked out ii an indirect manner under a statute of which in all probability he was as ignorant as he was of the rule which the statute was enacted to abrogate. Moreover, a legacy of five hundred dollars is given to each of the testator's children who might not have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, only as he reached that age. The plaintiff was less than five years old at the date of the will and less than seven years old at the death of the testator. If the-testator intended that the plaintiff should receive a legacy of five hundred dollars, can there be any, question that the gift would have been subject to the same restriction as that imposed in the case of his own children, to wit, that it should he payable only on his reaching the age of twenty-one years ? Yet, under the decision below, he became entitled to the legacy thirteen years before reaching his majority, and, of course, is awarded interest on it from that time. I appreciate that at times, on account of fixed rules of law, to depart from which wmuld create confusion, it is necessary for courts to attribute to a testator an .intention which it is very doubtful if he actually had, but we are not compelled to construe a statute so as to effect such an unfortunaté result when there is nothing in tlm statute that deals with the construction of wills.
I think the judgment below should be reversed and the complaint dismissed, with costs.