Court Opinion

ID: 9636718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:40:42.178773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:48.564039
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Jones:
The interpretation which this court places upon the testamentary writing here involved works to the obvious impairment of the appointment made by one of the testator’s three sons. If that is what the testator intended, it would of course be an end of the matter. But such is not the case. The rationale of the construction adopted by the learned court below, and now approved by this court, rests upon what I take to be a patent misconception of the purpose and import of the proviso in Item Two of the testator’s Seventh Codicil with respect to the distribution of the one-half of the “appointed estates” after the expiration of twenty-one years from the testator’s death during which period the income from such portion was payable to the testator’s widow.
The scheme of the Seventh Codicil (which is all that this ease is concerned with) was to make an identical disposition of the testator’s own residuary estate (in Item One) and the estates over which he had powers of appointment (in Item Two), Thus, in Item Two, he devised and bequeathed to his trustees the estates over which he had powers of appointment “upon the trusts and for the purposes and in the manner set forth in Item One of this codicil with respect to my residuary estate . . . .” To that, he appended a proviso that the trust of the portion of the “appointed estates” under Item Two for the benefit of the widow was to terminate not with her death, as in the case of the similar trust for his wife’s life under Item One, but twenty-one years from the death of the testator. This *372arbitrary time limit was undoubtedly injected because of an apprehension on the part of the testator that he might otherwise violate the rule against perpetuities. Out of the wording of that cautionary provision, the majority deduces the construction which gives to the appointee of- the testator’s son, Samuel, a lesser proportion of the “appointed estates” dealt with in Item Two than the same appointee receives from the testator’s residuary estate comprising the trusts under Item One.
Not only does the majority’s interpretation of Item Two thus ignore the evident scheme of Item One and Item Two of the Seventh Codicil but it also produces an inequality adverse to Samuel in respect of his exercise of the power of appointment conferred by the testator upon Samuel and his brothers alike. Such an intent is manifestly foreign to what the testator’s will and various of his many codicils plainly evidence. Throughout, equality of interest among his sons or their representatives was the testator’s guiding beacon. See, for example, the Fourth Codicil of April 9, 1929, where, after giving Samuel $10,000 absolutely, he explained that “in order that the shares of all my said sons shall be equalized I make this provision for my said son, S[amuel] Brinton Wharton” (Emphasis supplied) ; or paragraph two of Item One of the Seventh Codicil where the testator, out of his own residuary estate, equalized Samuel for bequests which Samuel’s brothers had received under the will of their grandfather, Charles W. Wharton, Samuel apparently not having been in being when that will was executed.
The result produced by the majority’s interpretation is, moreover, attended by glaring' incongruities which are allowed to arise because of no more than the fortuity of Samuel’s relatively early death. He was a minor in 1925, as his father’s will of March 11th of *373that year indicates, but was evidently of age when the Fourth Codicil was executed in 1929. Samuel died testate December 13, 1943. By his will, he devised and bequeathed to his wife, Katherine C. Wharton, absolutely, his entire estate including that over which he had power of appointment. The twenty-one years following the death of the testator, Joseph Lovering Wharton, expired on March 17, 1952, with his widow, Amelia, still surviving. Had Amelia died prior to Samuel or had Samuel survived the twenty-one year period following his father’s death, it is beyond dispute that Samuel’s exercise of his power of appointment under his father’s Seventh Codicil would have effectively transmitted to his widow, Katherine, his one-third of the one-half allocation of the “appointed estates” from which Joseph’s widow, Amelia, received the income for twenty-one years following his death but no longer. Or, suppose that Samuel, having died when he did, had left to survive him a child or children to whom he had appointed under the power conferred upon him by his father’s will, such children would not have taken what represented Samuel’s interest in the one-half of the “appointed estates” whereof the widow Amelia had the benefit for the twenty-one year period. Neither the codicil here involved nor any other of Joseph Lovering Wharton’s testamentary writings requires an interpretation fraught with such anomalous possibilities.
The thing whereon the construction, which the majority approves, is based is the clause in the proviso in Item Two which states that, upon the termination of the trust for Amelia after twenty-one years from the testator’s death, the principal was to be distributed and paid over to the persons “who would then be entitled to receive the income from said trusts if my said wife were then deceased . . . .” The purpose of this provision, as evidenced by the testator’s indicated fear *374lest lie violate the rule against perpetuities in disposing of the appointed estates, was to vest effectually and unequivocally, in possession, the corpus of the trust for Amelia under Item Two upon the expiration- of the twenty-one year period folloiving the testator’s death. However, the disposition of the corpus of Amelia’s trust in the “appointed estates’? was actually provided for in Item Two where the testator unqualifiedly subjected such corpus to the same provisions of ultimate disposition as were contained in Item One with respect to his residuary estate. The clause in the proviso upon which the majority rely is by no means so clear or unambiguous as to be capable of cutting down the absolute grants antecedently devised and bequeathed in Item Two: see Harris Estate, 351 Pa. 368, 377, 41 A. 2d 715; and Cross v. Miller, 290 Pa. 213, 216, 138 A. 822. In short, the proviso.was not intended to, nor does it, constitute a limitation upon the interests or powers of the testator’s sons. It was correlated to a supposititious basis, namely, the widow then being dead, but that was without reference to any of the sons also being dead. Nowhere in the proviso is there expressed or even suggested any contingency predicated of a son’s surviving either Amelia or the twenty-one year period following her husband’s death. Admittedly, no such contingency exists with respect to the ultimate disposition of the trust fund for Amelia under Item One.
Nor is it to be overlooked that, while the clause in question contemplates distribution of the principal to those entitled to receive the income, such persons were to receive the principal (the trust being terminated by Amelia’s assumed death) “ in the same proportions in lohich the income would be received by them in such case” (Emphasis supplied). It is plain enough, under the scheme of the testator’s Seventh Codicil, ■ that *375Charles would be . entitled to but one-third of the income from the trust (lately for Amelia) and that Joseph, Jr., and his son Joseph, 3rd, would, likewise, be entitled aggregately to but one-third of the income of the trust property in question. Who then should receive or be entitled to receive the income from what had been Samuel’s interest in the trusts of the appointed estates? None other than his widow, Katherine, by virtue of his testamentary appointment to her. Her receipt of the principal carried with it the right to the income therefrom. The case of Jacobs’ Estate, 343 Pa. 387, 391-392, 22 A. 2d 744, upon which the learned auditing judge relied, is not presently pertinent. It was there held that bequests of surplus income did not in the testamentary circumstances present constitute a gift of principal. But, here, the situation is precisely the converse. It is too well settled for further argument that a gift of principal automatically carries with it a right to the income which the principal produces. The persons entitled, therefore, to the income from the “appointed estates” upon the termination of the trust for the testator’s widow, Amelia, were Charles, Joseph, Jr., and Joseph, 3rd, and Katherine who, by virtue of Samuel’s will, received outright his income-producing interest in the trust of the “appointed estates”. The proviso cannot justly be read otherwise or properly be accorded any greater effect. There is no basis whatsoever' for concluding, as does the majority, that the testator’s two sons, surviving Amelia, would each be entitled to one-half of the- income from the trust for her in the appointed estates.
' The mere-fact that Joseph Lovering Wharton gave his sons general, and' not special, powers of appointment over their , respective .trust allocations of both his residuary estate and-the .“-appointed estates” sufficiently answers.-the .-suggestion .that perhaps Joseph wished *376to restrict the distributees of the “appointed estates” to persons of his blood. Further answer lies in the fact that, as already pointed out, had Samuel survived Amelia or even the twenty-one year period following his father’s death, there could be no question that his wife, Katherine (not of the blood), would be entitled to one-third of the one-half of the “appointed estates” lately in trust for Amelia. Finally, why would Joseph Lovering Wharton so restrict Samuel’s ultimate disposition by will of the one-third of the one-half of the “appointed estates” in trust for Amelia when he made no such restriction with respect to the one-third of the one-half of his residuary estate in trust for Amelia for life?
I would reverse and remand for the entry of a decree awarding to Samuel’s widow, Katherine, by virtue of his absolute appointment, one-third of the one-half of the “appointed estates” held in trust for the testator’s widow, Amelia, for the twenty-one year period immediately following his death.
Mr. Justice Chidsey joins in this dissent.