Opinion ID: 1439918
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the parties and the will

Text: [¶ 2] Florence N. Lord died on March 23, 1998. Her husband's death was a month earlier, and their only child Anne died in 1979. Dreher and Haggerty are the daughters of Lord's only sibling. [¶ 3] Lord left a will dated June 24, 1997, drafted by her attorney who had known the Lords for a number of years. Lord's nephew, John B. Nichols, the brother of Dreher and Haggerty, is the personal representative of the estate. Nichols, Dreher, and Haggerty filed the petition for construction of Lord's will that began this litigation, but Nichols is not a party to the appeal. The petition requested the court to determine whether subpart F of Article Fifth, which refers to a trust, fails because there is no trust and whether, therefore, the assets referred to in subpart F pass by intestacy. The petition also asked whether Lord's real estate in York passes by intestacy because the will does not expressly dispose of it. The petition contained other requests, but they were resolved by settlement. The appellees, who responded to the petition, are thirteen of the sixteen beneficiaries named in Article Fifth of the will. [¶ 4] The dispute is focused primarily on Article Fifth of the will. The first three articles dispose of certain furniture, personal items, certificates of deposit, and Massachusetts real estate to relatives and named charities. Article Third provides a life estate to Lord's husband in real estate in York if he survives her, but there is no explicit provision for the York property if he does not survive her and no provision for disposition of the property after termination of the life estate. Article Fourth establishes a family trust which is to terminate upon the death of Lord's husband. Upon termination, the principal of the trust, after gifts to charities, is to be divided into fourteen equal shares to be paid to sixteen named individuals including Nichols, Dreher, and Haggerty. [1] The other named beneficiaries are the nieces and nephews of Lord's husband and close family friends and their children. [¶ 5] Article Fifth is entitled Alternative Devise, and purports to dispose of Lord's estate if her husband predeceases her. Portions of Article Fifth are inconsistent with portions of the first three articles, but the parties reached a settlement concerning several of those inconsistencies. Subpart F of Article Fifth states: The entire remainder of the Trust shall be divided into fourteen (14) equal shares and my Trustee shall pay over one (1) equal one-fourteenth (1/14th) share, free of all trust, to the following: .... Listed thereafter are the same sixteen individuals listed in Article Fourth. This quoted language from subpart F is precisely the same language that appears in Article Fourth to distribute the assets of the trust upon Lord's husband's death. [¶ 6] The parties agree that no trust exists. No trust was established by Lord's will except the trust referred to in Article Fourth, which never came into being because Lord's husband predeceased her. Thirteen of the named beneficiaries claim that the words trust and trustee in Article Fifth were inadvertent and that Lord intended to use the words estate and personal representative instead. Dreher and Haggerty contend that because there is no trust, the residue of Lord's estate, including the York real estate, must pass to the heirs by intestacy. If they are correct, it means that Nichols, Dreher, and Haggerty would receive all of the residue of the estate, including the York real estate, and the thirteen named beneficiaries would receive nothing. If Dreher and Haggerty do not prevail, they will each receive one-fourteenth of the residue. [¶ 7] The Probate Court heard testimony from Nichols, Dreher, Haggerty, and several of the other named beneficiaries. The court also heard testimony from the attorney who drafted the will and his secretary. It reviewed numerous documents that were admitted into evidence including the previous wills and codicils executed by Lord, as well as the wills of Lord's husband and daughter. [¶ 8] The Probate Court concluded that Lord intended that Article Fifth serve as a residuary clause. It found that Lord and her husband had close and affectionate relationships with the named beneficiaries in subpart F and that Lord's daughter Anne regarded her cousins on both sides of the family as brothers and sisters. The distribution of assets to the named beneficiaries was consistent with Lord's previous wills as well as her husband's and daughter's wills. The court stated that Lord and her husband were highly motivated to mirror their late daughter, Anne's, own testamentary wishes regarding her `brothers and sisters' when [they] prepared and executed their own estate plans. That Lord intended her York home to be included in the distribution in Article Fifth was evident to the court because after fifteen years of estate planning, it is not likely that she would have left a significant asset undistributed. [2] Furthermore, the totality of circumstances, including the fact that without the York real estate there would be no assets to satisfy these devises, demonstrated to the court that Lord intended the York property to be included in Article Fifth. The court found that there is no trust to which Article Fifth could refer, and the use of the words trust and trustee was explained by the method of document preparation in the office of Lord's attorney. [¶ 9] The court's order provides that the residue of Lord's estate, including her real estate in York, passes pursuant to Article Fifth, subpart F, as though the word `estate' was substituted for the word `trust' and as though the word `personal representative' was substituted for the word `trustee.' The order also calls for the attorney fees for both the prosecution of and opposition to the petition to be paid by the estate.