281 Mass. 458 | Mass. | 1933
This petition in equity was brought in the Probate Court under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 197, § 19, to establish the petitioner’s claim to a legacy of $1,000 under the third clause of the codicil of the will of Galen L. Stone, late of Brookline. This clause is as follows: “I hereby
The material facts found by the judge include the following: “The petitioner'is a laundress who was employed by Mrs. Carrie Stone, wife of said Galen L. Stone at his home in Brookline aforesaid beginning May 12, 1919. Some time during August, 1920, Mrs. Stone suggested to the petitioner that she live outside the house, because the cook objected to the number of servants staying in the house. ... In accordance with the suggestion of Mrs. Stone, the petitioner lived outside the Stone home, but continued to do laundry work at the Stone residence. During 1920 the petitioner gave up her employment in the Stone family, returned in November, 1920, remained until April, 1921, when she left again. In 1922 she was married. Upon September 7,1923, the petitioner went to work again in the Stone family, Mrs. Stone having sent for her. From this last named date (September 7, 1923), the petitioner worked as a laundress in the Stone family until the death of Mr. Stone, December 26,1926, with the exception hereinafter noted. The petitioner was ill from June 5, 1925, to October 1, 1925, and unable to do any work during this period .... The rate of the petitioner’s pay was $4 a day and she was generally paid during a period covering three, four or five weeks. The petitioner worked at the
We think that on the facts found the petitioner is within the testator’s description of “each and every person in my employ at my residences in Brookline and Marion, Massachusetts, at the time of my decease,” “whose .employment shall have continued for a period of at least three years immediately prior to my death,” and is entitled to a legacy of $1,000.
The words quoted are comprehensive and must be construed liberally. Frazer v. Weld, 177 Mass. 513, 516. Nothing therein or in other provisions of the will or codicil, read in the light of the testator’s circumstances when the instruments were executed, limits the description to persons having contracts of employment for fixed periods or to persons living at the residences of the testator. The conditions of the gifts are met by actual employment at the testator’s residences, continued for the prescribed period, though the employment was on a per diem basis and the employee lived elsewhere.
There is no merit in the respondent’s contention that the
Nor is the petitioner, as the respondent contends, excluded from the benefits of the codicil because she was never regularly employed at the testator’s residence in Marion. In fact she worked there occasionally. But, apart from this fact, according to the natural interpretation of the language in question, employment at both residences was not required. Persons employed at both or either residence are included. If support is required for this interpretation it is found in the care of the testator to exclude expressly from the benefits of the third clause of the codicil Arthur E. Griffin, who is described by the testator as “now in my employ at Marion” — an exclusion which would have been unnecessary if the testator had not thought that the previous description of persons employed at his residences in Brookline and Marion would include persons employed at only one of those residences.
The petitioner’s employment had “continued for a period of at least three years immediately prior” to the-testator’s death. It did not fail to have so continued because she did not work every day, or every working day, of every week during the period and was paid only for the days she worked. Except for the time of her illness she worked from three to six days of every week. Such employment cannot fairly be described as merely casual or intermittent. Though the petitioner was not entitled as matter of law to employment for any fixed period she had, in common speech, a steady job for the testator, though not a full time job. And, according to evidence which the judge believed, the employment was in effect exclusive of other
There was no error in the refusal of the judge to rule as requested or in the entry of the decree.
Decree affirmed.