Meyer v. Eisler

Bartol, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court : The decision of this appeal turns upon the true construction of the residuary clause of Godfrey Meyer’s will. The testator died in July, 1848; Elizabeth, one of his children, married John Rose, the appellee, and died in September, 1861, before Clorinda, the youngest child by the second marriage attained the age of twenty years, which did not happen till December, 1863. The whole contest in the case, is as to the rights of John Rose as surviving husband of Elizabeth ; and presents the question whether under the residuary clause of the will, the children took a vested interest in the property devised to them ; or whether their interests were contingent and to become vested only at the expiration of twenty years after the testator’s death, or upon his youngest child arriving at the age of twenty years whichever should first occur. In Snively v. Beavans, 1 Md. 208 , an estate was devised to G. M. Watkins, the brother of the testator, in the event of the testator’s two sons dying before they arrived at twenty-one ³³ years of age, he paying to testator’s wife $1,000.

It was held that the legacy to the wife was a vested interest, and though she died before • the contingency happened upon which the. devise to G. M. Watkins was to take effect, her personal representatives were entitled. The court said, (page 222,) “ the law is said to favor the vesting of legacies, and hence to defeat a bequest of this kind, it must appear from *the nature and circumstances of the case, that the time of payment was made the substance of the gift, and that the testator meant that time as the period when the legacy should vest.” In Waters v. Waters, 24 Md. 444, 455 , this court recognized and applied the rule of construction which favors the vesting of estates, citing with approbation the language of Mr. Jarman, as correctly stating the law on the subject. That learned author vol. 1, 727, states the general rule to be “ that where a testator creates a particular estate, and then goes