LATIONS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

LATIONSAuthored

The Law Mind • 878 words

Definition

Lations is an archaic legal term, appearing primarily in older American and English probate and equity practice, for relations or relatives — that is, persons connected to another by blood or marriage. In legal instruments, particularly wills and trusts, the term was used to describe a class of beneficiaries defined by familial relationship to the testator or another named person.

The term carries no independent technical meaning beyond its function as a designator of a class. Its legal significance lies entirely in how courts construed the scope of the class it described: which relatives were included, which were excluded, and in what proportions they took.

Common Confusion

LATIONS vs. NEAREST RELATIONS vs. NEXT OF KIN: These terms are not interchangeable in legal instruments, and courts drew careful distinctions among them. "Nearest relations" was construed in equity to mean brothers and sisters, to the exclusion of nephews and nieces — a narrower class than the common understanding of "nearest relatives" might suggest. "Next of kin" carried its own distinct statutory meaning tied to intestacy statutes, and could differ from judicial constructions of "nearest relations" in the same jurisdiction. Researchers reading older wills, trust instruments, or equity decisions must not assume these terms map onto each other or onto modern statutory categories.

Why It Matters in Research

The term "lations" appears rarely as a standalone entry and is most often encountered as the operative word in a class gift under a will or trust — either alone or modified ("nearest lations," "poor relations," "relations equally"). Its research significance is almost entirely construction-based: courts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced a substantial body of case law interpreting what class of persons a gift "to my relations" or "to my nearest relations" actually captured.

Several traps await the researcher working with historical sources:

First, judicial construction of relational class gifts was not uniform across jurisdictions or even across courts in the same jurisdiction. A gift "to my nearest relations" might be held to reach brothers and sisters only, or to extend to all relatives within a defined degree of consanguinity, depending on the court and the period.

Second, modifying language — "poor relations," "relations equally," "relations living at my death" — dramatically altered the class and its internal distribution. Bouvier notes that "poor relations, equally" was construed to include the testator's brothers and sisters and the mother of his wife per capita, effectively reading the modifier "poor" out of the instrument. Researchers cannot assume modifying adjectives narrowed or widened the class in predictable ways without consulting the controlling case law.

Third, this term belongs to an era before statutory reform of intestacy and class gift construction. Modern Uniform Probate Code provisions and state statutory equivalents have largely superseded the common law rules that generated this case law. Older equity decisions construing "relations" are therefore of limited precedential value but remain essential for understanding the intent and operation of instruments drafted under prior law.

Researchers tracing an estate dispute or a chain of title with roots in a nineteenth-century will should treat any class gift using "lations" or "relations" as a flag requiring dedicated construction research before any distributional conclusion can be drawn.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's Law Dictionary treats "lations" not as a freestanding doctrinal entry but as a term embedded in the construction of class gifts under wills. Bouvier's synthesis makes two points of durable value.

First, "nearest relations" was a term of art in equity, construed to mean brothers and sisters to the exclusion of nephews and nieces. This was not a self-evident reading — ordinary language would suggest nephews and nieces are as near as siblings in terms of affection — but it reflects the equity court's tendency to resolve ambiguous class gifts at the closest ascertainable degree rather than expanding the class outward.

Second, Bouvier records that qualifying language could be judicially neutralized. The phrase "poor relations, equally," rather than restricting the class to those in financial need, was read as equivalent to "relations equally" — with "poor" treated as surplusage — and the class was distributed per capita rather than per stirpes among a broad set of familial connections including the testator's wife's mother.

Bouvier does not provide a systematic treatment of the full range of construction rules governing relational class gifts, and researchers should not treat his entries as exhaustive. The historical dictionaries are useful here chiefly as orientation, pointing toward the case law that actually governed construction. Modern legal dictionaries largely omit this term, which reflects its obsolescence as a drafting term rather than any resolution of the underlying construction questions.

Jurisdictional Note

Construction of class gifts using relational terms was developed primarily by equity courts and varied by state. New Jersey and Pennsylvania authorities figure prominently in Bouvier's citations, but the rules in those states may not reflect the approach taken elsewhere. Researchers should identify the governing jurisdiction and applicable law at the time the instrument was executed.

LATIONSmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

Nearest relations means brothers and sisters to the exclusion of nephews and nieces: 45 N. J. Eq. 97. "Poor rela- tions, equally," was held to include testa- tor's brothers and sisters, and the mother of his wife per capita, as if the word "poor" were not used; 8 S. & R. 43. A legacy to A and his executors and ad- ministrators, legal representatives or per- sonal representatives (which titles see). gives A an absolute interest in the legacy; 15 Ves. 537; 118 Mass. 198; 18 Gratt. 529; L. R. 4 Eq. 859. But in some instances these words will be taken as words not of limitation but of purchase; L. R. 4 Eq. 359; 2 Beav. 67; 25 Md. 401. Generally when persons take under this description they will be bound to apply the legacy as the personal estate of the testator or intestate; 8 Bro. C. C. 224; 2 Yeates 587; 8 Sim. 328. Mistakes in the name or description of legatees may be corrected whenever it can be clearly shown by the will itself what was intended; 10 Hare 345; 8 Md. 496; 15 Ν. Η. 317; 4 Johns. Ch. 607; 23 Vt. 336; 7 Ired. Eq. 201; 15 Gray 347; 59 Ν. Υ. 441; L. R. 10 Eq, 29. The only instances in which parol evi- dence is admissible to show the intention of the testator as to a legatee imperfectly described, is that of a strict equivocation: that is, where it appears from extraneous evidence that two or more persons answer the description in the will; 5 M. & W. 363; L. R. 2 P. & D. 8; L. R. 11 Eq. Cas. 578; 15 Ν. Η. 330; 49 Me. 288; 24 Pa. 199:59 Ν. Υ. 441; 133 U. S. 216; see 120 id. 586; and to explain names in the will, which the testator has used and which are pecul- iar or incomprehensible owing to testator's idiosyncrasies or other reasons; 2 P. Wms. 141; 4 John. Ch. 607; 5 H. L. Cas. 168. See 50 N. J. Eq. 554. Extrinsic evidence is ad- missible to remove latent ambiguity in a will; but as to the character and extent of such evidence see LATENT AMBIGUITY. By statute in Massachusetts legacies may be distributed by order of court to such persons as seem indicated by will. Laws 1895, ch. 184. Interest of legatee. Property given spe- cifically to one for life, and remainder over, must be enjoyed specifically during the life of the first donee, although that may ex- haust it; 4 My. & Cr. 299: 2 My. & Κ. 703; L. R. 11 Eq. 80; 45 N. H. 261;,6 Gill & J. 171; 17 S. & R. 293; 2 Md. Ch. 190. But where the bequest is not specific, as where personal property is limited to one for life, remainder over, it is presumed that the testator intended the same property to go over, and if any portion of it be perishable, it shall be sold and converted into perina- nent property, for the benefit of all con- cerned; 2 My. & K. 699; 7 Ves. 187; 4 My. & C. 298; L. R. 4 Eq. Cas. 295. See 76 Iowa 336. In personal property there cannot be a remainder in the strict sense of the word, and therefore every future bequest of per- sonal property, whether it be preceded or not by any particular bequest, or limited on a certain or uncertain event, is properly an executory bequest, and falls under the rules by which that mode of limitation is regulated; Fearne, Cont. Rem. 401, n. An executory bequest cannot be prevented or destroyed by any alteration whatsoever in the estate, out of which or after which it is limited; 8 Co. 96 a; 10 id. 476. And this privilege of executory bequests, which ex- empts them from being barred or destroyed, is the foundation of an invariable rule, that the event on which a limitation of this sort is permitted to take effect must be such that the estate will necessarily vest in in- terest from the time of its creation within a life or lives in being and twenty-one years thereafter and the fraction of an- other year, allowing for the period of ges- tation, afterwards; Fearne, Cont. Rem. 431. Where the legacy is payable at a future time a question often arises as to when the legacy vests. The rule seems to be that if a legacy is payable or to be paid at a future time, then a vested interest is conferred on the legatee eo inslanti the testator dies, transmissible to his executors or adminis- trators: 31 Beav. 425; 44 Ν. Η. 281; 1 Ves. 217; 2 Sim. & S. 505; 48 Me. 257; 9 Cush. 516; 2 Edw. Ch. 156. But if it be payable at, if, when, in case, or provided a certain time comes or contingency arrives, then the legatee's right depends upon his being alive at the time fixed for payment; 62 Me. 449; 37 Pa. 105; 3 R. I. 226; 106 Mass. 28; 4 Dana 572; 5 Beav. 391. For exceptions to this rule see 2 Will. Ex. 1224. No particular form of words is requisite to constitute one a residuary legatee. It must appear to be the intention of the testa- tor that he shall take the residue of the estate, after paying debts and meeting all other appointments of the will; 2 Jac. & W. 399; 44 Ν. Η. 255; 9 Leigh 361; 40 Conn. 264. The right of the executor to the residue of the estate when there is no residuary legatee is well established, both at law and in equity. in England, except so far as it is controlled by statute; 2 Р. Wms. 340; 3 Atk. 228

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