145 Mass. 577 | Mass. | 1888
The defendant Mariah Ashley was entitled, under the will of her husband, to the income for life of the residue of his estate after the payment of two legacies to herself, and also to so much of the principal as should be necessary to give her a good and comfortable support. After her death, Frederic Alderman, one of the defendants, is to be paid $100 from what is left, and the remainder is to be given to the representatives of Joseph B. Hascall, a legatee who has deceased since the death of the testator. The income is now insufficient for the support of Mariah Ashley, and the plaintiff should provide for her from the principal, unless the whole or a part of $2500, paid her in 1871, is first to be used for that purpose. With this sum paid her, and with $1100 of her own money, she bought at that time a house for her home, and has occupied it ever since. The only question in the case is whether she must dispose of that house, or of some interest in it, and use the proceeds, before she can receive anything more from the principal of her husband’s estate.
The words in the will, “ a good and comfortable support,” and “good and comfortable living,” are to be construed liberally. She is the testator’s widow, and this provision is in lieu of dower. Moreover, the facts that no one else was to receive anything under the will until after her death, and that the entire estate was set apart by the testator for her use if she should need it, indicate an intention on his part that she should be well supported.
The house which she bought was of the same class that she had previously lived in with her husband, and would rent for fifteen or sixteen dollars per month. She was well advanced in years, and had always been accustomed to living in a house of
If the $2500 had been exhausted in procuring such a home for her lifetime, the case would be free from difficulty. But she obtained an estate in fee, and after her death this house will pass under her will or descend to her heirs. To have kept strictly within the purpose for which the money was to be appropriated under the will, she should have applied it to the purchase of an estate for her personal occupation during her life, and, if it became necessary to acquire the whole title, the remainder should have been held for the benefit of the fund. Instead of making a strict appropriation of the payment with a view to the preservation of the legal rights of all parties, she put $1100 of her own money with it, and bought the house, and took an estate in fee to herself. The property has diminished in value and is now worth but $1800. Eleven thirty-sixths of that sum represent a payment from her own money, and twenty-five thirty-sixths a payment from the principal of the fund. The use too of the contribution from her own property has apparently gone in diminution of the sum which the fund would otherwise have been required to supply. Does her holding a title in fee, instead of for life, in this share, preclude her from claiming support until she shall have disposed of the remainder, and consumed the proceeds?
Her purchase was made at a time when it was not expected that this question could ever arise. The income was then ample
We do not think, under the circumstances of this case, that Mariah Ashley’s ownership of an estate in the house which will extend beyond her lifetime is such a possession of property received from the plaintiff as to require her to dispose of it and apply the proceeds to her support, or render it necessary that a transaction so long assented to should be now disturbed. The plaintiff may therefore properly pay her, under the will, such sums, in addition to the income, as she may need for her comfortable support. Decree accordingly.