Court Opinion

ID: 6485309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-26 23:08:34.196632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:54:18.880352
License: Public Domain

*345DISSENTING OPINION OP
ROBERTSON, C.J.
The material portions of the will of the late Mr. Bertel-mann are set forth in the former opinion of this court reported in 14 Haw. 378, 385, 386.
The clearly expressed intention of the testator was that the sons should have the right to acquire the whole of the leased land upon giving to the daughters what the testator evidently considered a fair equivalent for the interests devised to them. It was his will “that my lands shall befall in equal shares and interest upon my three sons;” that they “will have a right to buy the whole of my lands now leased to the K. S. Co.;” and that “by doing so, they my sons or he my son will enter in full possession of all my lands, and their or his right and title will be undisputable” etc. Thus did the testator express a dominating intent. It being a lawful intent it is the duty of this court to see that it is carried out. Strictly speaking, I think, the estate given each of the daughters was not an estate upon condition subsequent, but a limitation. The condition precedent to be performed by the sons is that they should pay “to each one of my daughters or surviving daughters the sum of five thousand dollars.” The third paragraph of the will, taken by itself, supports the view that the remainders of the daughters after the expiration of the lease would be defeated by death during the term of the lease. Upon a strict literal interpretation of that paragraph it would have to be held that the sons could acquire title to the whole land by paying $5000 to each of such daughters as might be living when the time came for the sons to exercise the right given them, i. e., between the date of the expiration of the lease and one year thereafter. Such literal interpretation is not followed, however, because it is not in harmony with the general intent of the testator as shown by the will as a whole, as held by this court in the former *346case, that the daughters were intended to have vested estates in fee. That is, estates which would descend to their respective heirs. But this departure from the language used in the third paragraph, which is required by the entire context, should not be carried to such an extent as to defeat the primary and clearly expressed intent of the testator that his sons should have the right to acquire the whole land by paying for the interests given to the daughters and their heirs. The contingency of the death of a daughter before the expiration of the lease was not provided for. Yet in order to effectuate the intent manifested by the testator it must be held that as to the estate of a deceased daughter which has passed to her heirs the sons should have the right to pay those heirs the sum which the will stated should have been paid to that daughter had she lived. The primary intent of the testator having been ascertained from the will as a whole the language used in any particular paragraph must, if inconsistent with that intent, be made to bend to it. “In case of doubt a will should be construed in favor of a general or primary intention rather than a particular or secondary one; and where in such a case a particular intention, or particular terms, as expressed in some part of the will, are inconsistent with and repugnant to the testator’s general intention as ascertained from all the provisions of the will, the general intention must prevail.” 40 Cyc. 1393. The general rule, which, it is conceded is well settled, that a condition precedent must be literally performed, should not be enforced in the case of a will when the intent of the testator would thereby be defeated. The general and primary intent was that the sons, or one or more of them, should have the whole land; the language used with reference to the condition upon which they should acquire it was the expression of a secondary and particular intent. The means was secondary to the end, and should yield or conform to it. To hold otherwise, it seems to me, is to sac*347rifice the substance to the shadow upon a narrow and technical view. This is not a case where the literal performance of a condition has become impossible. The condition precedent prescribed in the third paragraph of the will could be literally performed, and, as the agreed facts show, has been performed, notwithstanding the death of one of the daughters, by making the payments to the surviving daughters. Properly construed, however, the condition precedent which the testator imposed to the acquisition by the sons of the estates given to the daughters was not that they should make payment to the surviving daughters only, but that they should pay the sum named for the interest given to each of the daughters and their heirs. The right to acquire the interests of the daughters was not, I think, a mere personal privilege which could not be assigned to and exercised by a vendee of the sons. In my opinion the judgment should be that the plaintiffs are seised in fee of an undivided one-ninth of the land subject to the right of the defendant to acquire the same by the payment of $5000.