Title: Springer v. Vickers

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

66 So. 2d 740 (1953)
SPRINGER
v.
VICKERS et al.
1 Div. 472.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
June 30, 1953.
Rehearing Denied August 11, 1953.
McCorvey, Turner, Rogers, Johnstone & Adams, Mobile, for appellant.
Inge, Twitty, Armbrecht & Jackson, V. R. Jansen, Joe C. Sullivan and John H. Tappan, Mobile, for appellees.
GOODWYN, Justice.
This is a proceeding to construe the will of Joseph A. Hynde, who, at the time of his death on November 11, 1934, was a resident of Mobile County. The body of the will, leaving out the property description, is as follows:
"State of Alabama,
"County of Mobile.
The particular provision calling for construction is Item Nine. The other parts are pertinent only to the extent that they may be helpful in arriving at the testator's intent with respect to Item Nine.
The holding of the trial court is that under Item Nine Nellie Lucy Hynde, the wife of testator, took a life interest in the property therein devised, with vested remainders over to testator's nieces, nephews, grandnephews and grandniece named in the first sentence of Item Nine, with the nieces and nephews and N. L. Vickers, Jr., a grandnephew, each taking an undivided one-twelfth interest, and Anne Hartwell Johnson and Wallace Johnson, Jr., a grandniece and grandnephew, respectively, each taking an undivided one twenty-fourth interest.
All of the persons named in Item Nine were living at the time of testator's death. Nellie Lucy Hynde, the life tenant, died on August 15, 1950. The following of the named remaindermen died prior to the life tenant's death, viz.: Joseph H. Norville, Anna Norville Kern and N. L. Vickers, Jr.
The specific and decisive question presented is whether these deceased remaindermen acquired, at testator's death, a transmissible interest in the property, that is, an interest which was alienable, devisable and descendible. The lower court held that they did. Appellant insists it was the testator's intention to postpone vesting of *743 the remainder interest until the death of the life tenant; that vesting of such interest was made contingent on the persons named as remaindermen surviving the life tenant.
We have been favored with helpful briefs. Our conclusion is, after full consideration of the arguments made, that the decree of the trial court is due to be affirmed. We see no escape from this conclusion when the will is considered in the light of recognized rules of construction.
One of the rules is thus stated in McCurdy v. Garrett, 246 Ala. 128, 129, 19 So.2d 449:
To the same effect are the following cases, among others: Allen v. Maxwell, 249 Ala. 655, 660, 32 So. 2d 699; George v. Widemire, 242 Ala. 579, 585, 7 So. 2d 269; Pearce v. Pearce, 199 Ala. 491, 496, 74 So. 952.
The general rule in favor of early vesting of an estate is stated in 69 C.J., pp. 597-602, as follows:
The rule is thus stated in 33 Am.Jur., Life Estates, Remainders, and Reversions, Section 106, p. 563:
Another apt and familiar rule is stated in Allen v. Maxwell, supra, and Duncan v. De Yampert, 182 Ala. 528, 62 So. 673, 675, as follows:
There can be no dispute, and we do not understand appellant to question, that the first sentence of Item Nine, when considered separately, clearly creates a life estate in testator's wife and vested remainders in the other persons named therein. Code 1940, Tit. 47, § 140; Allen v. Maxwell, supra; George v. Widemire, supra; Wright v. City of Tuscaloosa, 236 Ala. 374, 182 So. 72; Phinizy v. Foster, 90 Ala. 262, 7 So. 836.
It is appellant's insistence, however, that other provisions of Item Nine, when considered in connection with the will as a whole, show an overriding intention that the remainder interest was to vest at the death of the life tenant and not at the death of testator.
It is argued, first, that the several clauses in Item Nine providing for substitutions in event of death of any of the remaindermen "prior to the above mentioned property vesting in term" show a clear intent to postpone vesting of the remainder interest until the death of the life tenant, since, as contended by appellant, such provisions mean prior to vesting of possession of the property. But that is not what the substitutional provisions say. The words used are "prior to the * * * property vesting." Does that mean prior to vesting of possession of the property, or prior to vesting of the remainder interest in the property? While it might be conceded that these provisions, standing alone and without considering the technical meaning of the words used, are susceptible of the construction contended for by appellant, they are equally susceptible of the other meaning "vesting of the remainder interest" in the property. We do not know, of course, exactly what the testator had in mind when he included these provisions in his will. What he intended is not clear. It is in such situations that courts must resort to application of established rules to aid in ascertaining and giving effect to the testator's intention. When such rules are applied here, we fail to find the required "clear manifestation of the testator's intent" to postpone vesting of the remainder estate until after termination of the life estate; and particularly is this true in view of the clear intent of the first sentence of Item Nine to vest the remainder at testator's death. Allen v. Maxwell, supra; Duncan v. De Yampert, supra. It is to be observed, too, that we do not have here the question of precedence as between two contradictory clauses. As we have seen, the substitutional clauses are readily reconcilable with the gift clausethe first sentenceof Item Nine. As stated in 57 Am. Jur., Wills, Sec. 1128, p. 721:
To the same effect is Ralls v. Johnson, 200 Ala. 178, 180, 75 So. 926, 928, where it is said:
*745 The additional argument is made that "the testator clearly wanted his blood relations to become the beneficiaries of his estate." Continuing to quote from appellant's brief:
Is there any good reason to suppose that testator wanted the relatives living at his wife's death, rather than those living at his own death, to be able to pass title to strangers to his blood? As we view it, the primary objects of his bounty, next to his wife, were his nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews named in Item Nine. They were living when the will was made and when the testator died. Is it not more reasonable to say that testator intended these living and known relatives to have the right of disposition as against such right in unknown relatives at some uncertain future date?
We find no error in the decree rendered by the trial court. It is due to be, and, is, affirmed.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON and MERRILL, JJ., concur.