Responses to Questions Of General Public Interest in the Year 1898

G.W. presents the following questions:

A certain sum of money is left to an executor in trust for some children. He is to invest the same and pay over the interest to each child every six months. Is the executor entitled to a fee for collecting and paying or only for paying the interest?

What is the legal fee?

Each child's share of the trust fund is equal and separately invested for each. Upon the death of either child the principal sum so invested for that child is divided equally between the remaining children and given to them.

Is the executor entitled to a fee upon the amount paid out of the principal to the surviving children?

If so, what is the legal fee to which the executor is entitled?

In either case no legal fee..

The statute provides that an executor shall have for receiving and paying out all sums of money not exceeding one thousand dollars, five per cent.; exceeding one thousand and not exceeding ten thousand dollars; all sums over eleven thousand dollars one per cent. And in addition to this scale, he is entitled to an allowance by the surrogate for all reasonable expenses. So that he is entitled to the percentage not merely on the interest, but on collecting and paying, and also on the amount collected and paid to the surviving children out of the principal, because his duty herein involved a settlement of the estate of the deceased child.

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R.P. asks: If A sues B and gets a judgment; B has no property of any kind; an order of arrest is issued. What must B do to get out of it?

He has no recourse except to defend. His opponent must prove his allegations to justify his order. If he fails to do so and there appears to have been no justifiable cause for the order of arrest, he will be liable in an action of damages for a false arrest.

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L.O. asks: Does the law free a woman in five or seven years in this state, said woman having left her husband and no legal steps of any kind having been taken? She was married by the laws of New York State and deserted from Philadelphia, Pa., where said husband and wife lived.

The law does not free any woman by the mere act of deserting her husband, with or without cause. To sever the bonds of wedlock there must be legal proceedings, which in New York are in cases of divorce rather strict.

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H.T.J. inquires: An English lady inherits at her father's death real estate and personal property. One week before her marriage (about twelve years ago) she takes advantage of the woman's property act and has everything settled on herself. She dies intestate, leaving husband and brother's children. Her husband takes out letters of administration. Can you tell me the English law? Who are the rightful heirs, husband or brother's children?

Both in England and New York the husband is entitled to a life interest in the whole of the real estate. After this expires the brother's children would come in as next of kin and share the inheritance.

As to "personal property," the husband is entitled to one-third and the remaining two-thirds goes to the children equally. In this respect I think also the English and New York laws of descent coincide.