Opinion
May 15, 1935.
May 27, 1935.
Wills — Construction — Bequest for religious or charitable uses — Time — Void bequest.
1. A bequest, devise or conveyance to any body politic, or to any person in trust for religious or charitable uses, unless duly made by deed or will at least one calendar month before the decease of the testator or alienor, is void, and goes to the residuary legatee or devisee or next of kin or heirs, according to law. This rule applies to all such gifts whensoever they are intended to take effect.
Appeals — Parties — Party not financially interested in distribution of fund.
2. One not financially interested in the distribution of a fund by the court below, has no standing to appeal therefrom, and if he takes an appeal it will be quashed.
Argued May 15, 1935.
Before SIMPSON, KEPHART, SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW and LINN, JJ.
Appeal, No. 70, March T., 1935, by Mercy Hospital of Johnstown, Pa., from order and decree of O. C. Cambria Co., in estate of Mary R. Bridges, deceased. Appeal quashed.
Audit of account of trustee. Before REED, P. J.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.
Exceptions to adjudication filed by legatee charity. Decree entered dismissing exceptions. Legatee appealed.
Errors assigned, among others, were dismissal of exceptions to adjudication.
Edward J. Harkins, of Scanlan Harkins, for appellant. Philip N. Shettig, with him William Williams, Donald J. Perry and Arthur A. Nelson, for appellee.
The Mercy Hospital of Johnstown, Pa., a "body politic . . . for charitable uses," appeals from a decree of the Orphans' Court of Cambria County, distributing a portion of the assets of the estate of Mary R. Bridges, deceased, to appellee, although it, the hospital, has not now and never has had any pecuniary interest therein. By testatrix's will the hospital was given a remainder interest in a portion of those assets, but as she died less than thirty days after executing her will, the attempted gift was "void and [passed] to the residuary legatee or devisee, heirs or next of kin, according to law: Section 6, Act of June 7, 1917, P. L. 403. The present appellee is the only one who comes within that designation. Since the hospital had and has no pecuniary interest in those assets, it has no standing whatsoever to attack the decree of the court below distributing them. Only a "person [who is] aggrieved by a definitive sentence or decree of the orphans' court may appeal from the same": Section 59 of the Act of March 29, 1832, P. L. 190, 213, reënacted in section 22 of the Orphans' Court Act of June 7, 1917, P. L. 363, 383; Carothers's Est., 300 Pa. 185; Levan's Est., 314 Pa. 274, 276.
The appeal is quashed.