Case Name: A. Elijah Hart, Trustee, vs. William Henry Roberts et als.
Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Connecticut
Decision Date: 1907-06-12
Citations: 80 Conn. 71
Docket Number: 
Parties: A. Elijah Hart, Trustee, vs. William Henry Roberts et als.
Judges: 
Reporter: Connecticut Reports
Volume: 80
Pages: 71–82

Head Matter:
A. Elijah Hart, Trustee, vs. William Henry Roberts et als.
First Judicial District, Hartford,
May Term, 1907.
Baldwin, C. J., Hamersley, Hall, Prentice and Thayer, Js:
General Statutes, § 751, provides that questions of law may be reserved for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors in all eases in which an appeal could have been taken had judgment been rendered therein. Held that while exceptional situations might arise calling for a reservation of legal questions before the trial court had passed upon all questions of fact involved, yet in the interest of simplicity, directness and economy in the trial of causes, a reservation ought not as a rule to be made or entertained until the case had proceeded so far that a determination by this court of the questions propounded would necessarily enter into and be decisive of the final judgment to be rendered in the cause.
Questions as to the power of the Superior Court to order a sale of real estate constituting a testamentary trust fund, ought not to be reserved for the advice of this court, if the hearing as to the advisability of selling the property is held in abeyance by the trial court to await the receipt of such advice. A reservation under such circumstances will be dismissed as premature, since it calls for the determination by this court of questions which may quite likely prove to be merely academic.
Argued May 8th and 14th
decided June 12th, 1907.
Application by a testamentary trustee for authority to sell and convey certain real estate for a stated sum, and to invest the proceeds, brought to and reserved by the Superior Court in Hartford County, George W. Wheeler, J., upon a finding of certain facts, for the advice of this court as to the. power of the trial court.
Cause remanded without advice.
The complaint alleged, and the answers of all parties, admitted, the following facts: May 22d, 1898, William W. Roberts of Hartford died, testate, owning certain real estate in the city of Hartford described in the complaint. At his decease he left as his heirs at law and next of kin, a son, William Henry Roberts, who is unmarried, and a grandson, Henry. Roberts Williams, both now living and parties defendant. Said Henry Roberts Williams is married and has three children, all minors and parties defendant. By his will and its 'codicils the testator gave the residue of his estate, consisting of real and personal property and including the real estate in question, to the plaintiff trustee in trust for the life of said William Henry Roberts. By the terms of said trust the principal thereof was to remain intact, certain provisions out of the income were made in favor of said son and of said grandson, and of the surviving children of said grandson in the event of his death before that of said William Henry, and any balance of income was to be allowed to accumulate as a part of the corpus of the fund. The gift over, upon the termination of the trust, was made, one half to the children of William Henry, share and share alike, and the other half to said Henry Roberts Williams, or, if he should have died, to his children, or if either said William Henry or said Henry Roberts Williams should have died leaving no one ,to take the share set out to him respectively, then that share was to go to those entitled to take the other share. The court has found true the allegations of the complaint which set out at length and in detail the facts thus briefly summarized.
The complaint further alleged, and the answers admitted, that it was for the best interests of said trust estate and of the beneficiaries thereof that the real estate described in the complaint be sold and the avails thereof invested according to law; that $225,000 had been offered by a responsible party therefor; that said offer was a full and fair one; and that the plaintiff believed that it was for the best interest of said trust estate, and of the beneficiaries thereof, that the premises should be sold and the avails thereof invested. .
The court did not pass upon any of these allegations, but found that said Roberts and Williams and the guardian ad litem of the latter’s minor children, being all of the defendants, desired to have a sale of the premises made, and believed it for the best interest of all concerned that a certain offer be accepted; and expressly reserved the question of the advisability of accepting said offer for further hearing after the advice of this court should be obtained upon the following questions of law, which were thereupon reserved for the determination of this court, to wit
“a. Whether this court (the Superior Court) has, in view of the terms of the will and codicils thereto, power to decree a sale of said premises.
“b. Whether this court has, in view of the terms of the will and codicils thereto, power to decree a sale upon terms other than cash.
“ c. Whether this court has, in view of the terms of the will and codicils thereto, power to decree a sale upon the terms named in the offer attached and marked Exhibit B.” The offer thus referred to was one that the purchaser pay ©15,000 in cash, assume a first mortgage of ©83,000 already on the property, and give a note for ©97,000 payable in specified instalments, bearing interest at the rate of five per cent, payable semi-annually, and secured by a mortgage upon the property subsequent to said first mortgage.
Before action had been taken by the court as above recited, the State’s Attorney for Hartford County had, pursuant to the provisions of § 553 of the General Statutes, been directed to appear and to investigate the allegations of the complaint, and to do all things necessary and proper to protect all interests involved in the action and not actually represented in court by counsel; and he had reported that he was of the opinion that it was for the best interests of the trust estate and of the beneficiaries thereof that a sale be made conformably to the terms of said offer.
Charles Welles Cross, with whom was Charles E. Cross, for the plaintiff.
Henry H. Williams, for himself.
Walter S. Sehutz, for Beatrice H. Williams et als.

Opinion:
Prentice, J.
If the advice of this court upon the ques tions propounded be givén and a negative reply be returned to all of them, such advice would result in a final judgment dismissing the action, and such judgment could be directed by this court. If, on the other hand, an affirmative reply be given to one or more of the questions, the cause would have to be remanded for a further hearing and the exercise by the trial court of its reasonable discretion as to what action it ought to take upon the facts as found, before the judgment stage would be reached. The judgment when rendered might then be one in favor of either party, would be one which this court could not direct, and might not be one which was conformable to any advice given, since the questions upon which advice was given • might not enter into the action of the court at all. If upon the return, of the cause the trial court should, after its hearing, decide either that a sale, a sale for other terms than cash, or a sale upon the terms of the particular offer contained in the record, would not be advantageous, this court would find itself in the position of having given advice upon a question or questions which were purely academic and could serve no helpful purpose in the decision of the cause. ' '
. The language of the statute (§ 751) is doubtless comprehensive enough to permit this court to entertain reservations of questions of law where the advice given will not be decisive of the final judgment- to' be rendered in the' cause. Doubtless, also, such reservations have been entertained and possibly not infrequently. Such, however, has not been the case of late, repeated rulings having been made in open court to the contrary. State v. Feingold, 77 Conn., 326, note, 59 Atl. 211. See also New York, H. & N. R. Co. v. Boston, H. & E. R. Co., 36 Conn. 196. But whatever authority the terms of the statute may confer, and whatever practice may be discovered to have at some time existed, it is certain that the statute. did not contemplate, and ought not to be construed to permit, that every question which a trial court may encounter in the progress of a cause, much less every one which it may anticipate that it may encounter, might be brought here at once upon its be ing either met or scented from afar, and its determination had for the guidance of the trial court. Such a practice would inevitably result in this court being called upon to formulate principles of law which would never enter into the determination of a cause, to formulate such principles in an abstract form suited to more or less general application and not as related to a concrete state of facts and narrowed and simplified by such relation, to create a mass of dicta -embodying statements of abstract general principles which might some day rise up to harass judicial action, and to unnecessarily multiply the number of appearances in this court -which an action might have before final disposition was made of it.
; We do'not, however, wish to be understood as saying that no reservation ought to be made or entertained until the case is ready for final judgment. Situations have arisen and may well arise where such action would be in the interest of simplicity, directness and economy in judicial aetion. Such situations, however, will be those exceptional ones where the advantages resulting from such proceeding are manifest and distinct, and the question upon which advice is asked is one which will quite certainly enter into the determination of the cause.
The situation in the present case is not one of the exceptional character indicated; far from it. Our advice is asked upon, three points, each involving considerations more or less foreign- to. the others. Whether any one of them will ever become pertinent cannot be told until the trial court has performed its functions. The slender thread by which one at least of them is hung to the case is apparent, and the vice of anticipatory abstract adjudications is well illustrated by that example. We are asked to advise whether the court has the power to authorize the acceptance of a certain offer which it does not appear that either the court or the trustee deems an advantageous one. It is quite possible that this request for advice involves the. determination of. an important question or questions having far reaching consequences, and yet the withdrawal of the offer, the receipt of a better one, or an adverse finding as to the wisdom of acceptance for other cause, would quite likely remove, them entirely from the case. Furthermore, if the advice asked should be given, and that advice should be favorable to the power of the court in any of the respects enumerated, the subsequent action of the trial court upon its hearing and in its exercise of its discretion would conceivably furnish ground for the reappearance here of the cause. The discretion which the trial court would in the end be called upon to exercise would not be an absolute but a reviewable one, and the hearing preliminary to its exercise might be productive of reviewable rulings.
If we look for advantage to be anticipated from the giving of the desired advice, to set off against the apparent disadvantages attending it, our search for anything substantial will be in vain. It would be a simple process for the court to pass upon the question of fact as to the desirability of making a sale upon the terms of the offer made, or upon other terms, and of reinvesting the proceeds, to exercise its discretion in either disapproving or approving one in some form and upon some conditions, and thereupon either rendering judgment, or, having thus exhausted its functions preliminary to judgment, reserving the cause for the advice of this court as to the judgment to be rendered upon the situation thus clearly defined. Thus the cause would come here with all possible questions pertinent to its final determination presented, with all questions having no such pertinence eliminated, with all questions narrowed to the precise situation in the case, and in such form that final judgment in conformity to our advice would follow and could be directed. Such a procedure would be the simplest and most direct one conceivable for the determination of the matters at issue, and avoid all possible circuity of action and the rendition of irrelevant and needless advice.
The cause is remanded without advice, to be proceeded with in the Superior Court.
In this opinion Hameksley, Hall and Thayek, Js., concurred. •