Melville Fuller

“ There can be no question that the District supreme court was clothed, as an orphans' court, with ample powers to proceed in the settlement of estates and the distribution thereof to those entitled, in accordance with equitable principles and procedure; and we think that the controversy raised by the exceptions of the next of kin to this final account was in its nature of equitable cognizance, and that the decree of the court of appeals is properly reviewable on appeal rather than on writ of error. ”

“ The intention of the testator must prevail, and legacies will not be held specific, when the result would be that the mere transmutation of money into securities raised an irrebuttable presumption of ademption inconsistent with the intention of the testator as plainly deducible from all the terms of his will taken together. ”

“ The authorities seem to be clear in holding that whether a legacy is to be treated as a demonstrative legacy, or is one dependent exclusively upon a particular fund for payment, is a question of construction, to be determined according to what may appear to have been the general intention of the testator. ”

“ The satisfaction of a general legacy depends on the intention of the testator as inferred from his acts, but the ademption of a specific legacy is effected by the extinction of the thing or fund bequeathed, and the intention that the egacy should fail is presumed. ”

“ It is true every executor is, in a certain sense and to a certain extent, a trustee for all persons interested in the preservation and distribution of the personal estate of the testator, and he is equally so in respect of the surplus or residue of the estate undisposed of by the will, as of any other portion of the estate, He takes the estate under the will for purposes of administration, and of distribution to those entitled ”

“ At common law jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons vested in the ecclesiastical, common-law and chancery courts, and, in this country, courts of probate or orphans' courts have universally been created by statute for the general exercise of that jurisdiction, including the exercise of equitable, as well as common-law, powers and the pursuit of appropriate procedure. ”

“ The motives which ordinarily determine men in selecting legatees, are their feelings of regard, and the presumption of course is that their feelings continue and they are looked upon as likely to continue. ”

“ At his death there were on hand $9,000 more in bonds, and $9,000 less in money. Do the rules of law require it to be held that by this change he intended to withdraw so much from what he had designed his wife to have, and to bestow it on the next of kin in addition to what he had originally expressly given them? ”