Case Name: Taylor's Administratrix v. Taylor's Executors
Court: Superior Court of Chancery of Virginia
Jurisdiction: Virginia
Decision Date: 1808-09
Citations: 4 Hen. & M. 411
Docket Number: 
Parties: Taylor’s Administratrix v. Taylor’s Executors.
Judges: 
Reporter: Virginia Reports
Volume: 14
Pages: 932–933

Head Matter:
Taylor’s Administratrix v. Taylor’s Executors.
September Term, 1808.
Wills — Construction—Vested Interests. — Construction of a will, what words give a vested interest which will pass to the representatives of a deceased legatee, though he was not to enjoy the estate till the death of a particular tenant for life, and died before that event happened.
The bill stated, that William Taylor, on the 3d October, 1794, made bis last will and testament, and died in a few days thereafter? that he left a wife, Susanna Taylor, and four sons, besides one in the womb who was born alive; that having made provision for one of his sons and his wife for life, he devised, at her death, one half of his land; and marsh to his son Beverly Claiborne Taylor and to his heirs, and then proceeded in these words: ‘ ‘and the negroes, furniture, stocks and money in the hands of the brokers, and every other article lent as aforesaid,” (to his wife,) “I direct shall be equally divided among all the children 1 have, or may have, by said wife Susanna Taylor, including in the said division the child she may now be pregnant with that the said Susanna and William Claiborne, two of the executors named by the said testator, qualified, but were exempt from giving security ; that they possessed themselves of the whole of the testator’s estate, and had received the profits; that the said Beverly C. Taylor intermarried with the plaintiff and died intestate, of full age, in April last; that the plaintiff administered on his estate, and claimed that part of his father’s estate, to which he would have been entitled if he had lived, till *the death of the said Susanna, who, with her co-executor, was charged with wasting the said- estate, and therefore the plaintiff, as to the personalty, required of the said executors that they might be compelled to give security for their past and future administration of the said estate, or that the game might be taken out of their hands, and that they might account for their transactions, and be restrained from selling or wasting any part of the said estate.
To this bill the defendants demurred, because they stated, that by the will of the testator, no present interest was vested in the intestate of the plaintiff, and therefore no interest could be derived by her.
See monographic note on “Wills.”

Opinion:
By* the Chancellor.
This case depends upon this, whether the intestate of the plaintiff had a vested or contingent interest, in an equal part of his father's personal estate, on-the death of his mother; and, from the words of the will, I take it to be a clear case, in favour of a vested interest, in the intestate of the plaintiff, but which he was not to enjoy until the death of his mother. The demurrer must be overruled, and the defendants ordered to answer.