Court Opinion

ID: 9697485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:18:04.396338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:22.214953
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the result reached by the majority herein, but I write separately to dissociate myself from the majority’s discussion of Lang v. Commonwealth, Department of Public Welfare, 515 Pa. 428, 528 A.2d 1335 (1987), which case I continue to believe was wrongly decided by this Court. Additionally, the majority now improperly relies upon the testator’s “duty” to support his mother during his lifetime in order to ascertain his intent when creating the trust at issue. The testator’s intent that the trustee provide for his mother’s care to the exclusion of the remaindermen can be clearly ascertained from the “four corners” of the document which created the trust. Where there is no ambiguity in the trust instrument, we must look no further in determining whether public welfare benefits are precluded due to the existence of another “available resource.”