# Engle v. Siegel

> Supreme Court of New Jersey · August 3, 1977 · 74 N.J. 287

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9699964

## Case

- **Full name:** Louis Engle, Executor Under the Will of Judith E. Siegel, Deceased, Respondent, v. Leo H. Siegel and Judith Baron, Appellants, and Ida Engle, Respondent; Louis Engle, Executor Under the Will of Albert N. Siegel, Deceased, Respondent, v. Leo H. Siegel and Judith Baron, Appellants, and Ida Engle, Respondent
- **Court:** Supreme Court of New Jersey
- **Decided:** August 3, 1977
- **Citations:** 74 N.J. 287; 377 A.2d 892; 1977 N.J. LEXIS 158
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Sullivan
- **Judges:** Mountain, Sullivan, Clifford
- **Cited by:** 36 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9699964

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that testator's probable intent was to distribute his estate between two families and "benefit the class of persons constituting their respective families" because the will drafting attorney recollected testator requesting a will that would "`split it down the middl…

## Opinion text

Sullivan, J.
(concurring in result). I agree with the result reached in the majority opinion but would not rest it on the doctrine of probable intent. To me, a proper construction of the written wills against the background of the undisputed facts and circumstances, leads me to the firm conclusion that the intent of the common disaster clause as it appears in each will was to divide each residuary estate equally between the two families. In other words, Rose Siegel and Ida Engle are mentioned as class or family representatives rather than individually.
Since Albert and Judith each intended and understood that the clause, as written, effected such a result, no change was made in the wills even though Rose died in 1967, some six years prior to the September 1973 tragedy. Therefore, construing the wills as written, I agree that the judgment of the Appellate Division should be reversed and that the residuary estates of Albert and Judith should be distributed one-half to Ida Engle and the other divided equally between Leo H. Siegel and Judith Siegel Baron.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9699964. Public record. Not legal advice.