3 Redf. 87 | N.Y. Sur. Ct. | 1877
[stating the facts as above]. — I have been furnished with what purports to be the decision of Judge Van Vorst (Supreme Court, special term), in which the question is discussed and determined as to the survivorship, growing out of the loss of the Schiller, in proceedings for instructions to the executor under the will of Elizabeth M. Walter, deceased, for the construction thereof, and a determination whether decedents, in these proceedings, their father or grandmother survived, and in which, after the consideration of the authorities upon the subject, the learned judge reaches the conclusion that, in the absence of any testimony upon the subject, there is no legal presumption of survivorship where persons perish in the same disaster. This decision, it seems to me, is proper and entitled to respect.
In Moehring v. Mitchell (1 Barb. Ch., 264,) the learned Chancellor, in speaking of certain English authorities upon the questions involved in these proceedings, says: “In the case of Taylor v. Diplock (2 Phillimore, 267); Colvin v. King’s Proctor (1 Hagg. Ecc., 92); and in Selwyn’s Case. (3 Id., 784), it appears to have been supposed, in the absence of any evidence to justify a different conclusion, that the
Let an order conformable thereto be presented for signature.