Title: National Bank of Commerce v. Greenberg

State: tennessee

Issuer: Tennessee Supreme Court

Document:

258 S.W.2d 765 (1953) NATIONAL BANK OF COMMERCE v. GREENBERG et al. Supreme Court of Tennessee. April 25, 1953. *766 Sam Taubenblatt, of Memphis, for bank. Abe D. Waldauer, Ben C. Adams, Jr., and Arthur H. Friedman, all of Memphis, for Mrs. Edith Greenberg, Guardian. Armstrong, McCadden, Allen, Braden & Goodman, Memphis, for Mrs. Bertha Plesofsky, et al. GAILOR, Justice. This appeal presents a bill, in the nature of an interpleader, filed in the Chancery Court of Shelby County, by the National Bank of Commerce as trustee under the will of Robert Cohen, deceased, for a declaration of its duties under the will, which created a trust for an infant granddaughter, Eleanor, the child of a deceased son of the testator. The Defendants are Mrs. Edith Greenberg, the legal guardian and mother of Eleanor, who takes if the trust is upheld, and the other Defendants with adverse interest, are the three daughters of the deceased trustor, who take under the will if the trust fails as to the granddaughter. The Chancellor decreed that the conditions imposed had been breached and the right of the granddaughter to take the trust fund had been forfeited. This appeal has been perfected in her behalf by her guardian. Item 4 of the will of Robert Cohen, which established the trust and states its conditions and details, is: It is stipulated that Eleanor was formally adopted by Herbert J. Greenberg, in the County Court of Cook County, Illinois; that Greenberg is the present husband of Eleanor's mother; that he is not a member of the immediate family of the trustor, Robert Cohen, and that in the decree of adoption, Eleanor's name was formally changed from Eleanor Cohen to Eleanor Cohen Greenberg. In the brief filed by the guardian on this appeal, this further admission is made: The assignments of error make two points which determine the case: (1) That the restraint on adoption, as quoted above from the will, is void as against public policy. (2) That since on account of her infancy, Eleanor could not consent to the adoption, which was, therefore, as to her, involuntary, that she should not be penalized for such involuntary breach of a condition of the trust. No Tennessee cases have been found which are directly in point on either of these two propositions. As to the first, we do not find any authority binding on us which justifies an inference that a limited restraint on adoption, such as that expressed in Robert Cohen's will, and disclosed by this record, is contrary to the public policy of Tennessee. The provision of a will, or the term of a contract, may be successfully attacked as offensive to public policy, only when such term or provision is detrimental to the public interest or the public welfare or the public good. It must be against "societal interest," in the phrase of the Restatement of Law, Property, IV, sec. 438. So, in the present case, if the prohibition against adoption was so arbitrary and absolute that it gave rise to a probability that the result would be to make the child a public charge, it might be argued with reason, that the prohibition was contrary to public policy. We find no such ground for attack upon the limited restriction made a condition in the will before us here. Since it is conceded that the trustor intended that Eleanor should not have the benefit of the trust if, as, and when those events should happen which have admittedly happened, and since the paramount and controlling law in the administration of wills is that the intention of the testator be carried out the intention of the testator is absolutely controlling so long as that intention is not in conflict with some positive rule of law. Burton v. Kinney, 191 Tenn. 1, 5, 231 S.W.2d 356, 357, 19 A.L.R. 2d 366, the question here is narrowed to whether the conditions imposed are valid, and if so, whether their breach worked a forfeiture on the interest of the granddaughter in the trust set up under the will. We must remember that the money was Robert Cohen's money, and he had the absolute right to have it used as he prescribed. It is no part of the judge's duty to pass on the reasonableness or fairness of the disposition he made of it. Compare: Church of Christ v. McDonald, 180 Tenn. 86, 98, 171 S.W.2d 817, 146 A.L.R. 1173. In our view, the question of adoption might well be pretermitted, it was still necessary that Eleanor's name remain unchanged from Cohen until she was 18, to permit her to take under the trust. There is no question but that such a condition is valid and will be upheld. 69 C.J., 670, sec. 1773, 57 Am. Jur., Wills, sec. 1510, Holmes v. Connecticut Trust & Safe Deposit Co., 92 Conn. 507, 103 A. 640, L.R.A. 1918E, 368. It is strenuously argued by Appellant that Eleanor took a vested interest on the death of the trustor, and that the conditions quoted were conditions subsequent. Whether the conditions were precedent or subsequent, is immaterial, in view of the provision of the will that Eleanor would take no beneficial interest until she was 18, and then only if there had been no violation of the condition with regard to adoption and change of name. We are here dealing with a trust created by will, and the law that the testator's will or intention controls, and the "intention of the testator is to be ascertained, not by subtle and artificial rules of construction, but by the most easy, reasonable and natural reading of the language he has used." Sizer's Pritchard on Wills, sec. 385. This is another way of saying that Courts will not construe wills by the use of abstruse legal principles and technicalities, but will construe them as would the man in the street from the every-day meaning and effect of the language employed. If the language here created a condition precedent, the Appellant apparently concedes that a breach of condition would defeat the claim, and if the language created a condition subsequent which was clearly expressed and lawful, it must be enforced. Nolfe v. Byrne, 142 Tenn. 309, 317, 219 S.W. 1. The decison of this case does not necessitate a decision whether the will created a condition precedent or subsequent. The effect upon the minor's enjoyment will be the same whether we hold that her rights were vested upon her grandfather's death, and divested by the deliberate breach of the conditions, or whether we hold that her rights have never vested, and never can, because of the deliberate breach of those conditions. It is to be noted that the Restatement considers conditions precedent and subsequent, together, and gives them identical effect. Further, the only excuse for non-performance because of impossibility is the "judicially ascertained" intention of the contractor. Here, "the judicially ascertained" and indeed, admitted, intention of the testator was that non-performance of the condition should not be excused because of impossibility or otherwise. As to the second point made by the assignments of error, if her grandfather intended that the granddaughter should lose the legacy upon her adoption and change of name, and it is admitted that he did so intend, he realized that these events would occur in her minority, and while she could not legally assent. The Chancellor wrote an excellent opinion, which has come up with the record and been of material assistance in our decision of the case. We feel that we cannot do better than to adopt a portion of that opinion, as follows: The assignments of error are overruled and the decree of the Chancellor is affirmed at Appellant's cost.