In the Matter of the Accounting of James W. Osborne, as Executor and Trustee Under the Will of Eugene La Grove…

Summary

The Court affirmed the lower court's decree, holding that the stock dividend must be apportioned between the life tenant and the remainder: the portion earned after the trust's creation belongs to the life tenant, while the portion earned before belongs to the trust corpus. The Court also reiterated the general rules that ordinary dividends go to the life tenant and that extraordinary dividends belong to the life tenant unless they intrench on the trust principal. Justice Gray dissented, arguing that the entire dividend should be treated as income and go to the life tenant.