243 Pa. 613 | Pa. | 1914
Opinion by
The testator left an estate, appraised at $5,489.54. The auditing judge, after allowing debts, expenses and pecuniary legacies to relatives awarded the net. balance, amounting to $4,199.22, to the appellants; but, on the hearing of exceptions to the adjudication, the Orphans’ Court declared the decedent intestate as to his residuary estate and distributed that fund among his next of kin, a sister and certain nephews and nieces; hence, this appeal.
The material facts in the case are correctly set forth in the opinion of the auditing judge published in connection herewith, except that the date when the testator “took ill” was between February 3 and 5, 1911, not “about the 8th of February,” as therein stated. The opinion overruling the award to the appellants does not differ essentially from the adjudication on the underlying facts, but the majority of the court below drew different inferences and reached other conclusions than those stated by the auditing judge. The judge .who heard the testimony concluded that the appellants “answer in all respects to the description of the residuary legatees” portrayed in the will; while the court in banc, after referring to some of the facts-found by the auditing judge and other evidence shedding light thereon, determined that, “the evidence does not bring these claimants within the description; even if there were doubt, it must be resolved in favor of intestacy, both by reason of the indeterminate and the indeterminable beneficiaries, and the lack of convincing proof.”
The assignments of error are sustained, the final decree is set aside, and the record is returned to the court below with directions to dispose of the case as here indicated; the costs to be paid out of the fund.