Taylor v. Reynolds

An action at law will not lie for a legacy charged on the devisee of the lands and directed to be paid by him in consideration of the lands devised to him.

This whs an action of assumpsit for a legacy. Zachariah Reynolds, deceased, by his will proved May. 23,1834, bequeathed as follows : “ My will and desire is that my son, Covington Reynolds, shall pay to my two daughters, Mary Robbins and Elizabeth Walls, (now the wife of David Taylor, one of the plaintiffs) the sum of fifty dollars each, at the death of my wife, Priscilla Reynolds, in consideration of the two-thirds of my lands in Nanticoke Hundred, which I have given him after the death of his mother.” Priscilla Reynolds, the widow of the testator, died in September 1853, and this action was commenced in April 1859. The defendant pleaded the usual pleas, and' on the trial proved that Covington Reynolds, deceased, the son of the testator and devisee of the lands mentioned, only a few weeks before his death in January 1858, acknowledged that the legacy had never been paid, and expressed his intention to pay it in a short time.

The counsel for the plaintiff moved a non-suit on the ground that an action at law would not lie for a legacy of this kind, and the Court granted the motion.