Opinion ID: 2302870
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Heading: the applicable law to the investments made by the trustee.

Text: The question of which law governs the investment of testamentary trust funds and the administration of trust estates, as distinguished from the validity and construction of the trust instrument, where elements of the trust, such as the testator's domicile, the trustee's domicile, the place of probate of the will, the situs of the trust property, the place where the trust is to be administered, etc., are not all located within the same state, is one which has resulted in some confusion, but the generally accepted rule to be extracted from the authorities is that a testamentary trust of personalty is to be administered by the trustee in accordance with the law of the state of the testator's domicile at the time of his death unless the will shows a manifest intention that the trust should be administered according to the law of another state. See In re Johnston, 127 N.J. Eq. 576 ( Prerog. 1940); affirmed, 129 N.J. Eq. 104 ( E. & A. 1941); Wilmington Trust Co. v. Wilmington Trust Co., 24 A. 2d 309, 139 A.L.R. 1117, 1126 ( Sup. Ct. Del. 1942); 115 A.L.R. 802; Restatement of the Law, Conflict of Laws, 380, § 298; Land, Trusts in the Conflict of Laws (1940) 203 et seq., §§ 36, 36.1, 36.2, 36.3, 40.1; Goodrich, Conflict of Laws (3 rd ed. 1949) 490 et seq., § 159. The testator's will in the instant case expressly authorized and empowered the trustee to invest in safe income-bearing securities under the provisions of the statutes of New York regulating the investment of trust monies   . The will contained no other authorization of investments. Additionally, it is noted that the testator designated a New York bank as trustee, and it appears from Macy v. Mercantile Trust Co., 68 N.J. Eq. 235 ( Ch. 1904), in which the identical will was considered, that the testator himself had been for a long time president of one of the leading banks in New York. Under such circumstances we are in accord with the conclusions of the advisory master herein that the will empowered the trustee to invest in securities under the applicable New York statutes and that such statutes as construed by the courts of the State of New York are applicable to the investments made by the trustee and the administration of the trust estate. We are also in accord with the conclusion of the advisory master herein, that the trustee was empowered by the foregoing quoted provision of the will to invest in securities which were authorized by the New York statutes at the time of making such investment and was not limited to the making of investments in such securities as may have been authorized by the New York statutes in existence at the time the will was made or at the date of testator's death. Such latter conclusion is the only reasonable and practical construction to be placed on the quoted provision of the will. Such a conclusion was reached in Reiner v. Fidelity Union Trust Co., 126 N.J. Eq. 78 ( Ch. 1939), reversed on other grounds, 127 N.J. Eq. 377 ( E. & A. 1940).