| Summary: | The will of Charles Hopton contained numerous bequests, many of them of named slaves. At his death Hopton owed more than [dollars] 10,000, but only one clause in his will directed that any of his property be sold (namely, the slaves Bill, Burwell and Edmund). Everitt, his executor, took the will to court gain a ruling on how the debts were to be paid; all the legatees maintained that their legacies were specific and so should not be used as funds to cover the payment of the debts before any legacies were conveyed. The court ruled that the bequests to all parties other than Hopton's widow Elizabeth were transparently specific, and so the question remained as to whether the bequests to Elizabeth were specific or general. It was determined that the bequests to Elizabeth were all specific with the exception of that of one year's provisions. Hopton's debts were to be paid first out of the value of this bequest and then, if that proved insufficient, as seemed inevitable, out of all the other bequests pro rata, all of them being of equal specificity.
|
|---|