Court Opinion

ID: 9863102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:05:38.450938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:46:56.759120
License: Public Domain

HYDE, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the rulings of the principal opinion herein and concur in the dissenting opinion of EAGER,. J., but would add the following comments, because it seems to me that the most clearly expressed intent indicated by the will1 of Harriett Elizabeth Russell, considered' as a whole in the light of the surrounding circumstances, is that the corpus of the trust estate (except the part designated for the church) should go to the named individual beneficiaries of the trust surviving at the end of the ten-year trust period. I cannot find any intent for any corpus to go to Washington University unless all of the individual beneficiaries, should predecease testatrix or die within the ten-year trust period. The will as. *729written clearly says so and as rearranged in the principal opinion still says so.
I find the clearest expression of intent in the following provisions of paragraph Fifth: (c) “to divide the principal ■■■ * * jnto five (5) equal shares and to set apart and hold in trust one such equal share for each of the following: (naming them)”;
(e) providing for payment of income •only during the trust term;
(f) “In the event any of the individual beneficiaries above named shall predecease me, or shall die after the creation of the trust for her benefit, the allocation of income to such person or persons shall cease; the total number of beneficiaries shall be deemed to have been reduced and the income and principal allocated to said deceased beneficiary or beneficiaries shall be prorated and added to the principal of the trusts for the then surviving beneficiaries * * ⅜.” (All emphasis ours.)
It seems to me that these references to the interest of the individual beneficiaries in the principal indicate an intention that the principal was to go to them or to the survivors of them at the end of the trust term. This intent is further indicated by paragraph Tenth providing that “no beneficiary of any trust estate herein created shall have any right, power or authority, at any time, either directly or indirectly, to sell, assign, transfer, mortgage, pledge or otherwise anticipate any income from or any principal of any equitable interest in any of said trust estate, nor shall any of the income or principal of any said trust estates be subject to any debt or obligation of any beneficiary or any judgment against any beneficiary, nor shall any of said income or principal of any said trust estates be subject to any process or procedure or proceedings at law or in equity to subject the interest of any beneficiary therein to any claim of any creditor or claimant.” Certainly if the beneficiaries were to have no interest in the principal of this trust, as held by the principal opinion herein, there was no reason whatever to so mention such an interest in the principal.
Looking at the surrounding circumstances, it appears that testatrix was the youngest of seven children, all the others being deceased when the will was made in 1949 and only two of them leaving children surviving at that time. The children of one brother, Mrs. Sowell and Mrs. Crutchfield (two of the trust beneficiaries), were S3 and 55 years old when the will was made. The other brother left four adult sons and his widow, Mrs. Burt M. Jack, one of the trust beneficiaries, who was 59 years old when the will was made. The fourth individual beneficiary is the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Burt M. Jack, who was named for testatrix, and she was not yet six years old when the will was made. Thus both surviving branches of the family were represented by the trust beneficiaries and it seems most unreasonable to me to attribute to testatrix an intent to give these three older women (for whom testatrix apparently believed income for care and support would be required after she and her husband died) income for only ten years and then leave them in old age with nothing if they survived the trust term. Likewise it seems unreasonable to attribute to her an intent to leave her minor grandniece (her namesake) with nothing, at the end of the ten-year trust term, when she would likely most need funds for education and support. It seems most reasonable to me that testatrix would not expect all of the three older women to survive the ten-year trust term but intended those who did to have their share of the corpus; and therefore she expected and intended that most or all of the corpus would go to her young grandniece. Paragraph Fifth of her will shows that she considered the principal of each of the five shares to be a separate trust and in subparagraph (f) she said that in case of death of individual beneficiaries “the principal allocated to said *730deceased beneficiary or beneficiaries shall be prorated and added to the principal of the trusts for the then surviving beneficiaries.” Why would she thus mention principal if only income was involved? All of these provisions and circumstances strongly indicate to me an intent that the principal should go to the beneficiaries who survived the ten-year trust term. Unfortunately the will does not directly or positively provide for payment of the corpus to beneficiaries who survive the trust term; but it certainly does not provide for paying it or any part of it to Washington University if any of them do. Therefore, it seems to me that at least we should hold, if any of the individual beneficiaries survive the trust term, testatrix died intestate as to the corpus.