Court Opinion

ID: 9693069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:21:03.273715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:39.805412
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts :
I am pleased to concur in the majority’s result. I view it as a retreat from the decision of this Court in Houston Estate, 414 Pa. 579, 201 A. 2d 592 (1964), and more in accord with the result recommended by the dissent in that case. The outcome of the instant case is a much needed step towards excising from our jurisprudence a small amount of the legal fictions encrusted on our decedents’ estates law.
*376The presumption of vesting was counterbalanced over the years by the “pay and divide rule.” This counterbalancing effect was destroyed with the proper abolition of that rule in Dickson Estate, 396 Pa. 371, 152 A. 2d 680 (1959). Certainly routine use of the presumption should now be avoided. Some scholars have gone so far as to advocate that there be a preference against vested interests.* I believe the language of this will supports the majority’s result, and I laud the limitation of Houston.

 E.g.; Leach, Property Law Indicted 60-61 (1967).