ELIZABETH ARMINELLA BURROWS SIFTON Vs. CLIFFORD SIFTON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal for the Province of Ontario which varied a judgment of Middleton J. given upon an application by way of originating motion brought by the respondents, Clifford Sifton and Wilfred Victor Sifton, the surviving trustees of the will of Clifford Winfield Burrows Sifton, deceased. By the motion the trustees sought the opinion, advice and direction of the Court on certain questions arising in the administration of that testator's estate. The testator died on 13 June 1928, leaving him surviving his widow, the respondent Mabel Cable Sifton, and his daughter and only child, the appellant, who was then of the age of 13 years. The will (dated 12 July 1926), after bequeathing the testator's furniture and effects to the appellant, continued as follows :

(2.) I give, devise and bequeath all other property real and personal to my executors upon the following trusts namely- To manage the corpus of the estate in accordance with their best judgment continuing any investments that exist at the time of my death if they see fit and to pay to or for my said daughter a sum sufficient in their judgment to maintain her suitably until she is 40 years of age after which the whole income of the estate shall be paid to her annually.

(3.) But the will then proceeded as follows : The payments to my said daughter shall be made only so long as she shall continue to reside in Canada. The principal question arising upon this appeal is whether this last-mentioned direction is not void for uncertainty. No light is thrown upon this question by the remainder of the will which merely provided that if the appellant should die leaving issue, by children should receive the whole estate in equal shares on attainment respectively by each child of the age of 25 years, but that if the appellant should die leaving no issue the corpus of the estate should be divided equally between the then living grandchildren of the testator's father Sir Clifford Sifton by the testator's mother the late Lady Elizabeth Sifton. The will contained no express direction as to what was to happen to the income of the estate during the rest of the appellant's life after she should have ceased to "reside in Canada."