It cannot be disputed that the certificate constituting the investment is identical, except as to the time element, with the one condemned in Iscovitz’s Estate, 319 Pa. 277. Exceptant points out, however, that the investment here is within the purview
It is true that this Act of 1929 may authorize investment by fiduciaries in trust certificates issued by a trust company against first mortgages but it does not meet the fatal objections raised in Iscovitz’s Estate, supra, namely, to the investment by an independent fiduciary of trust funds in certificates issued by a trust company — another fiduciary — against a fund of first mortgages, which fund is not fixed and defined but may be changed from time to time by way of substitution. The failure of the legislature specifically to depart from the requirements of identification and fixation of the trust res is regarded as significant because of the emphasis placed by the law upon the identification of the trust res and of the authority and responsibility from time immemorial vested in a trustee to select personally the trust res and not to delegate such duty. Another significant aspect of the act is the absence of specific exoneration of the investing fiduciary from the responsibility of determining that the mortgage or mortgages in the trust are legal and prudent investments. Such responsibility cannot be delegated.
Exceptant attempts to answer the conclusion of the auditing judge that the investment was improper because the trust funds against which the certificate was issued were not fixed, the trustee being free to substitute other
The argument is advanced by exceptant that although the certificate does not identify or require the trust company to set up any specific trust res, nevertheless, such fund, properly earmarked, was actually set up and ex-ceptant’s interest therein as trustee duly recorded on the books; that the impropriety connected with the investment was therefore only a matter of form which should not be held fatal to the responsibility of exceptant: Gibson’s Estate, 312 Pa. 359. With this reasoning we do not agree. Here, as distinguished from Gibson’s Estate, we have two independent contracting fiduciaries. The contract of the trust company to invest is merely executory, while exceptant accountant has divested himself of control of the funds of his estate. This and the other elements stamping the-investment as improper are fully discussed in the adjudication as well as in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Iscovitz’s Estate, supra.
The exceptions are dismissed and the adjudication confirmed absolutely.
