Title: Bailey v. Brannon

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

300 So. 2d 344 (1974)
Margaret BAILEY and Henrietta Lamb
v.
Elizabeth Jennett BRANNON, as Administratrix of the Estate of Mark Andrew Henderson, Deceased, and Ben F. Jennett.
SC 546.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 12, 1974.
*345 George S. Brown, Birmingham, for appellants.
Roberts & Davidson and Dan M. Gibson, Tuscaloosa, for appellees.
JONES, Justice.
This appeal comes to us from the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa County to decide the following issue: Did the devise in question create an absolutely vested interest or was it a vested interest subject to an executory limitation and hence capable of being divested? We hold, in affirming the trial Court, that the latter was created.
Mark Andrew Henderson, a University of Alabama student, died intestate on July 20, 1969, at the age of nineteen. He was the only issue to be born from the marriage of Louise Jennett Henderson and Lawrence A. Henderson, though each did have children from their prior marriages resulting in Mark's having five half-brothers and sisters. Mrs. Henderson's children, the petitioners-appellees, are Mrs. Elizabeth Jennett Brannon, the wife of a Tuscaloosa dentist, and Ben F. Jennett, a career navy man. Mr. Henderson's children, the respondents-appellants, are Mrs. Margaret Bailey, Mrs. Henrietta Lamb, and Lawrence Henderson, Jr.
The sole testimony in the trial was that of Elizabeth Jennett Brannon. A condensed recital of her testimony follows:
Mrs. Henderson died on November 15, 1968, leaving a will, the pertinent parts of which read:
The emphasized (italicized) portions of Items Fourth and Fifth present the grounds for this contest. The appellants contend that these provisions vested an absolute interest in the property for Mark at the time of his mother's death and hence would pass through his estate in intestate succession while the appellees contend that these provisions created a devise subject to an executory limitation (vested subject to being divested), in which case the property would pass to Elizabeth and Ben as remaindermen should the condition subsequent occur.
This Court, speaking through Mr. Justice McCall, stated in First National Bank v. Klein, 285 Ala. 505, 234 So. 2d 42 (1970):
The evidence presented to the Court below clearly shows that the sole intent of Mrs. Henderson was to care and provide for her own natural children from both of her marriages and not the children of her second husband by his former marriage. This wish was manifested in two alternative provisions: the first being to take care of the education and welfare of her minor son (the other two children already having found their stations in life), and the second being that should the gift fail due to the death of Mark before the age of 21, his devise should be divested, with the remainder going to her other two natural children, Elizabeth and Ben. Stated otherwise, her sole concern was to provide for her children in the order of their needs, Mark's coming first to enable him to finish his education since her other two children were already established in life. Thus, when all of the attending facts and circumstances are analyzed, her intent was clearly to include only her natural children and not the appellants as potential beneficiaries under her will.
Appellants offer no argument in brief that the testatrix did not favor her three natural children. Rather, appellants' first argument is that Mark had a vested interest in the residue the moment he survived his mother due to the two conditions set forth in Item 5: "In the event . . . Mark . . . predeceases me, or in the event he should die before he becomes twenty-one years of age . . ." Both of these "events" should be construed as conditions occurring during the lifetime of the testatrix, reasons the appellants, on the theory that the law favors early vesting. See Brizendine v. American Trust & Savings Bank, 211 Ala. 694, 101 So. 618 (1924); Haigler v. Haigler, 202 Ala. 480, 80 So. 864 (1919).
Appellees properly refute this argument by pointing to the language setting up the two conditions imposed upon the devise to Mark. Item 5 provides that in the event Mark predeceased his mother or in the event he died before reaching 21, then on the happening of either or both of the events, the property is to go over. To rule that both conditions relate to the testatrix's lifetime will make the second condition merely redundant. The first condition clearly is measured during testatrix's lifetime. The second condition must be measured from the standpoint of what age *348 Mark diedwhether during or after testatrix's lifetime.
Proper interpretation of the devise to Mark is that it is an executory devise. Mark received a defeasible fee simple in the residuary estate. Alabama has long recognized executory devises. McRee's Adm'rs v. Means, 34 Ala. 349 (1859). Different terms have been used to describe the precise interest which resides in the first taker: determinable fee, Farr v. Perkins, 173 Ala. 500, 55 So. 923 (1911); base fee, Montgomery v. Montgomery, 236 Ala. 161, 181 So. 92 (1938); qualified fee, Farr v. Perkins, supra; conditional fee, Newsom v. Holesapple, 101 Ala. 682, 15 So. 644 (1894). This type of estate is designated as an "estate in fee simple defeasible" in the Restatement, Property, § 16. Such designation has been deemed the correct view of such an estate by several commentators. See 2 Tiffany, Real Property (3rd Ed.), § 364 at 117-18, and 4 Thompson on Real Property (1961 Replacement), § 1873 at 543.
Appellants next contend that, if the gift to Mark contains an executory devise, then the executory devise over to the two named devisees is void for repugnancy because of the first taker's absolute power of disposition over the residuary estate.
Early Alabama common law recognized the rule that an absolute power of disposition in the first taker would void an executory devise. McRee's Adm'rs v. Means, supra. Although various commentators have criticized this rule on the ground that it was founded on an erroneous presumption (see 2 Tiffany, Real Property (3rd Ed.), § 377 at 133-137), there is no need to further discuss this question since Alabama has modified the common law rule by statute. Tit. 47, §§ 76-79, Code of Alabama 1940 (Recomp. 1958). These Code provisions set up a statutory scheme which basically provides that where particular estates for life or for years (§ 76), or undefined estates (§ 77) are created in a will with an absolute power of disposition (as defined in § 79), and with no trust created, the first estate is not enlarged into an absolute estate except as to the property already disposed of by exercise of the power.
While we have found no Alabama cases treating the question whether §§ 76-79 change the common law rule with respect to defeasible estates, a recent Federal Court case has treated this issue. Judge Seybourn Lynne, former Chief Judge, Northern District of Alabama, held that §§ 76-79 extend to include defeasible fees:
We agree with this holding.
Thus, if Items 4 and 5 are given effect without the trust agreement taking effect, §§ 76-79 of Tit. 47 govern. Any part of the residuary estate not disposed of by Mark is subject to the executory devise to the other named devisees.
Assuming that the trust provision within Items 4 and 5 is given effect, Mark had no power to dispose of the residuary devise; such power rested in the trustees. Tit. 47, § 145, Code of Alabama 1940 (Recomp.1958), requires that legal title must vest in the trustees, with power and duty to manage the trust property. The trust provision expressly provides that the two named trustees had various powers. One of these powers was the power to expend any or all of the property in their discretion for the maintenance, support and education of Mark. This power is in keeping *349 with the overall plan of the testatrix that Mark's education was of paramount concern.
Such power to expend any or all of the property for Mark's education is not to be understood as an absolute power of disposition so as to void the executory devise.
Tit. 47, § 79, defines absolute power of disposition as follows:
This Court has held that § 79 ". . . is substantially, if not literally, the definition of an absolute power of disposition given by Chancellor Kent. 4 Kent, Comm. 320." Wells v. American Mortgage Company of Scotland, 109 Ala. 430, 443, 20 So. 136, 141 (1895); i.e., § 79 is but a codification of the English common law.
The power granted the trustees fails to qualify as an absolute power. The trustees were not granted the power to sell the residuary property for their own benefit. Neither were they granted the power to dispose of the residuary property at their pleasure. Rather, the trustees were granted a qualified power which was to be exercised only for the purposes of supporting, maintaining, and especially, educating Mark. Such qualified powers do not vest in trustees an absolute power of disposition. See Morgan County Nat. Bank of Decatur v. Nelson, 244 Ala. 374, 13 So. 2d 765 (1943); Winn v. Winn, 242 Ala. 324, 6 So. 2d 401 (1942); Nabors v. Woolsey, 174 Ala. 289, 56 So. 533 (1911).
In conclusion we are constrained to comment that, although we have elected to treat the issues as argued and presented by the parties, we are at a loss to understand the efficacy of this appeal in light of Tit. 16, § 5, Code of Alabama 1940 (Recomp. 1958), which reads:
Assuming the correctness of appellants' contention with respect to the issue of "vested" versus "vested subject to being divested" issue, the paternal half-brother and half-sisters of Mark are not of the blood of the testatrix, his mother, through whom the inheritance came to Mark by devise; and in the words of the statute they "are excluded from the inheritance as against those of the same degree", i.e., the maternal half-brother and half-sister. Otherwise stated, it would appear that the appellants could not ultimately prevail in their effort to share Mark's estate whether or not his mother's will vested the subject property absolutely in Mark at the time of his mother's death.
The ruling by the trial Court that the surviving children of the testatrix should take the residue is eminently correct. Therefore, this case is affirmed.
Affirmed.
HEFLIN, C. J., and COLEMAN, BLOODWORTH and McCALL, JJ., concur.