29 A. 542 | N.H. | 1890
Interest is recoverable as damages for the detention of a debt after it is payable, but not as an incident of the debt, unless it is provided for by the contract. McIlvaine v. Wilkins,
The question whether a legacy carries interest, like other questions arising under a will, turns on the testator's intention. Dawes v. Swan,
To this doctrine, it has been said, there is one exception: "If the legacy is given to a child, or to an adopted child or a child to which the testator has placed himself in the place of a parent, which is under age, and for whose support no other provision is made, it bears interest from the testator's decease," though not payable until the child reaches a specified age. Bell, C. J., in Loring v. Woodward,
The result would be the same if the law were as the plaintiff claims it to be. She does not bring her case within the alleged exception. The only allegation of the bill tending to show that the testator assumed the place of a parent to the plaintiff is, that she and her father were living with him at the time her father died, a year and a half before the will was executed. It does not appear how long or upon what terms they lived with the testator, or that he supported or contributed to the support of the plaintiff. It is consistent with the plaintiff's averments that her father was in the testator's service and supported his family with the avails of his labor. The bill discloses no facts from which it can be inferred that the testator, when he executed his will or at the time of his decease, stood, or meant to stand, to the plaintiff in the relation of a father.
Demurrer sustained.
BINGHAM, J., did not sit: the others concurred. *334