64 N.J. Eq. 334 | N.J. | 1902
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Anton L. Bohle, who died in 1863, leaving a widow and four children, by his will appointed his wife, Anna, his executrix and
It is clear that Mrs. Hasselbroch committed a breach of the trust, when she used the trust funds in buying real estate, and took the title to herself without providing any bond and mortgage as a first lien in favor of the trust estate, 'as directed by the will of her deceased husband; and'the question is, what equitable situation was thereby created.
Several settled doctrines of courts of equity are pertinent to this inquiry.
It is a fundamental principle in regard to trust estates that
In accordance with these doctrines we think that the complainants, when their right to the possession of the trust estate matured by the death of their mother, were entitled, upon showing that the trust funds had formed a considerable part of the purchase-money by which their mother had acquired title to the Hoboken lots, to elect whether they would claim a lien upon the lots for the amount of trust funds used in the purcháse, or would claim the lots, subject to be charged, in favor of the personal representatives of their mother, with so much of the purchase-money as consisted of her own funds, and that, in endeavoring to ascertain how much was trust money and how much was the trustee’s own, every reasonable intendment should be made against the trustee through whose fault the truth had become obscure.
Since the complainants, being in possession of the lots, have filed their bill in equity to have it decreed that by their trustee’s purchase they became owners of the fee in remainder after their mother’s life estate, they have thereby elected to take the real estate in lieu of the trust money invested therein, and to hold it charged only with their mother’s own money so invested. Such a charge gives the husband no right to maintain ejectment, and consequently the complainants are entitled to a decree restraining his suit.
The present proceedings are not adapted to the ascertainment either of the amount of the charge or of the persons entitled to enforce it.
Let the decree appealed from be reversed, and a decree be entered as above indicated.
For reversal—The Chief-Justice, Dixon, Garrison, Collins, Eort, Garretson, Hendrickson, Pitney, Adams, Vredenburgii, Voorhees, Vroom—12.
For affirmance—None.