Court Opinion

ID: 9650727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:50:37.770316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:25.716092
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
Whatever may be the wisdom of our holdings in Scott and Williamson * except perhaps in an unjustifiably broad reading, they in no way control the question of interim commissions. No retroactivity problem is here presented for interim commissions relate only to the time of payment, a matter in which the beneficiaries have no constitutionally vested interest.
I wish to add one word of caution to the majority opinion. Interim commissions should be allowed only on the basis of the worth of the services rendered and should not exceed the total value of the services rendered from the inception to the conclusion of the period of trusteeship. See Comment, “The Constitutionality of Retroactive Trustee Compensation Statutes in Pennsylvania,” 114 U. Pa. L. Rev. 530, 537 (1966) : “The purpose of awarding an interim principal commission is to compensate the trustee for his services more promptly than was the practice under the terminal principal commission rule. This change is especially advantageous to the individual trustee, who will certainly be more willing to assume his duties knowing that he, rather than his estate, will reap the fruits of his labor. In the case of the retroactive interim principal commission statute, the remainderman has no standing to complain. The trustee is entitled to a principal commission and the fact that it is paid in *599more than one installment would not seem to affect the total amount of the award,. Nor should the slight reduction of income resulting from the early award of a principal commission defeat any reasonable expectations of the income beneficiary, since the amount of income commissions in Pennsylvania has always been at the discretion of the court and subject to variation.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Mr. Justice Jones joins in this concurring opinion.

 Our decisions clearly represent a departure from tlie great weight of authority. See 3 Scott, Trusts (2d Ed. 1956) §242, at 1928 (citing cases from California, Michigan, New Jersey and New York) ; King, “Uniform Principal and Income Act, §5: Constitutionality of Its Retroactive Application,” 1960 Wash. U. Quarterly 339, 346-47.