Generate a structured brief — facts, issues, held, reasoning, and significance — for this case in seconds. Or browse the verbatim judgment via the source links below.
At a subsequent period Mr Houston settled an additional annuity of L.600 upon his wife, and conveyed to her a liferent right to the mansion-house and offices of Clerkington, with the lawn, &c. There was no issue of the marriage. Mr Houston died in 1822, and Mrs Houston in 1837. She never uplifted, the L.3000. The only deed of settlement left by her was a will, bequeathing the furniture, &c. in the house of Clerkington, at her death, to the person who should succeed to that estate, as her husband's heir.
The present action was brought by Helen Macharg, executrix-dative qua nearest of kin of Mrs Houston, against the trustees appointed by her husband in a general trust-disposition and settlement, concluding for payment of the L.3000.
The Lord Ordinary (27th February 1839) repelled the defences, and decerned in terms of the libel, adding the following note:
If she had died before her husband, and without making any appointment, it might obviously have been maintained that the property was still in the trustees, and that all the right she had ever over it was truly a mere power or faculty to affect its ultimate vesting when the proper time arrived, by the death of the husband: and that, if she predeceased him, without executing that power or exercising that faculty, it would remain with the trustees for the general trust purposes, and would never be claimed by the legal representatives, as having never been truly in her person.
Lord Glenlee .—I am of the same opinion. What was done was just to give this lady the option of receiving a certain sum of money, and of giving up a portion of her income in return. She never exercised the option, preferring to receive her income in full, especially after she saw what her husband had given her in addition, when it would have been gross ingratitude on her part if she had disposed of this money. If she had exercised the option of uplifting it, she would have had all the powers over it mentioned by the Lord Ordinary; but all that depended on the option being exercised.
Auto-extracted from BAILII. Full structured brief in progress — the source links below give you the verbatim judgment in the meantime.
Multiple official and mirror sources — pick whichever loads cleanly on your network.
Common Room
0 comments · About the Common Room →
No comments yet — start the discussion.
Voted-best comments help future students and feed Caselaw's AI study tools.