Taylor v Gilbert's Trustees
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 12 July 1878 |
| Docket Number | No. 21. |
| Date | 12 July 1878 |
| Court | House of Lords |
Ld. Chancellor (Cairns), Ld. Hatherley, Lord Blackburn, Lord Gordon.
Succession—Vesting.—
A testator directed his trustees ‘to hold and apply’ the residue of his estate for behoof of his nieces and their children in the following proportions, viz.—one-third for behoof of A in liferent and her children in fee, one-third for behoof of B in liferent and her children in fee, and the remaining third for behoof of C, D, E, and F in liferent equally, and their children in fee equally among them per stirpes. He farther provided that in case of A and B dying without issue, or of such issue dying before attaining majority or being married, then the two one-third shares destined to them and their issue should fall and accrue to C, D, E, and F and their children ‘respectively in liferent and fee, and equally among them per stirpes as provided with respect to their own share of the residue.’ A and B died without issue, C left one son, who attained majority, but predeceased A and B.
Held (rev. judgment of Second Division) that the children of C, D, E, and F had, from the dates of their respectively attaining majority or of their marriage, a vested interest not only in the fee of the share liferented by their mothers but in the fee of the shares liferented by A and B, subject to divestiture in the event of A and B leaving issue who should attain majority or be married, and therefore that C's son had a vested interest from the date of his majority.
(In the Court of Session Nov. 3,1877, present vol. Court of Session reports, p. 49.)
In this case an appeal was taken for Mrs Jessie Watling or Taylor, widow of James Taylor, and for the testamentary trustees of Benjamin Taylor, his father, claiming, as in his right, under the will of the late Andrew Gilbert of Yorkhill, one-third of the two-thirds of the residue of Andrew Gilbert's estate, which had been liferented by the deceased C, Buchanan Gilbert and the deceased Jane Graham Gilbert.
The terms of the trust-disposition and settlement, and the circumstances under which the question between the parties arose, will be found fully narrated in the opinion of Lord Gordon, and also in the report of the case as decided in the Court of Session.
Lord Gordon.—My Lords, I think there is no difference between the law of England and that of Scotland in regard to the principle which must rule the decision of this case. The ruling principle in the construction of all testamentary deeds is the intention of the testator, and that is to be gathered from the words used; and as Lord Westbury said in the case of Young v. Robertson (4 Macqueen, 312), ‘it is satisfactory when in the legal construction of ordinary words in the English language there is no difference in the view which is taken in the one country and in the other.’
The testator here directed his trustees to hold and apply the whole residue of his estate ‘for behoof of my several nieces after named and their children in the following proportions,…viz., one-third part or share thereof for behoof of Jane Gilbert in liferent, and of the lawful child or children to be procreated of her body equally among them if more than one in fee; one-third part or...
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Barclay's Trustee v Commissioners of Inland Revenue
...with regard to vesting subject to defeasance. One regards it as an anomaly introduced into the law of Scotland by this House in Taylor v. Gilbert's Trustees 5 R. (H.L.) 217 and opposes any extention of the doctrine beyond existing authorities. The other regards it as an acceptable principle......