Court Opinion

ID: 9825938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:38:08.600351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:34.393231
License: Public Domain

After the above opinion was announced, a petition for a reargument was filed and heard.
Matteson, C. J.
After our former opinion in this suit had been announced, counsel for the residuary legatees and devisees asked for a reconsideration of the question whether Nicholas Brown took a vested interest in the fund of twenty thousand dollars and its accumulations, or only in the income thereof during his life.
The clause creating the bequest, after setting apart the fund of twenty thousand dollars from the property given to the trustees and giving directions in relation to its investment, declares that the trustees shall stand possessed of the fund and the investments and accumulations thereof in trust for said Nicholas, in case he survives the testatrix and attains the age of twenty-one years; thereafter to pay to him the net rent, income and profits- derived from said trust property during his life, in semi-annual payments, or oftener in their discretion. As Nicholas Brown survived the testatrix and attained the age of twenty-one years, the words expressing these contingencies may be eliminated from the consideration of the clause.
It is contended that this clause cannot be divided into two parts and the first construed as giving an absolute estate in the fund when the second expressly limits the estate to the income for life, and that on a proper analysis of the sentence it will be found equivalent merely to a gift of the income for life. We cannot assent to this view. Counsel do not tell us why the clause cannot be divided into two parts. It is, in fact, so divided by the testatrix. If it had been her intention, as we found in our former opinion, to give to her grandson an absolute estate in the fund, the control over which, except the income during her life, was to remain in-the trustees, the language and form of the bequest were well adapted to that end. She begins by declaring that her trustees shall stand possessed of the fund in trust for her grandson, and *582then directs them to pay to him the net rent, profits and income during his life. It seems to us the more natural and reasonable construction of the clause itself, laying aside for the present other indications in the will and codicil supporting that construction, to regard the first part of the clause as a gift of the fund and the second as directing the manner in which the fund is to be dealt with and applied for the benefit of the legatee, rather than as a diminution or qualification of the original gift. Such a construction is not without authority for its support. Thus in Billing v. Billing, 5 Sim. 232, the testator gave all his property in trust to trustees to invest it in securities at interest for the use of his nephew, to be paid at such time and in such manner as the trustees should see fit; and when the nephew should attain twenty-one that the trastees should pay him the amount of the interest or proceeds of the money come to their hands, as they might think most for his advantage, in weekly or quarterly payments, for his life. It was held that the nephew took an absolute interest in the principal, on the ground that the first part of the will contained an absolute bequest, and that the second part of it did not express a sufficiently certain intention to cut it down to a life estate. Again, in Gurney v. Goggs, 25 Beav. 334, there was a bequest of a thousand pounds to a married woman for her own use, with a direction, nevertheless, .to the executors during her life to put the same at interest and pay to her the dividends and interest accruing thereon half yearly or otherwise, as the same should become due, for her own sole and .separate use, independent of any husband. It was held that she took an absolute interest. And see McMichael v. Hunt, 83 N. C. 344. In Norman v. Kynaston, 3 DeG., F. & J. 29, a testatrix by her will directed that her fortune should be divided between A. and R. K, and appointed trustees for R. K. to pay half yearly his share. By a codicil reciting that A. was dead, she desired that her fortune should be divided between R. K. and T. K. for the use of their children, and' when they became of age, to be settled on them, share and share alike. R. K. survived the testatrix *583and died without having had a child. It was held that the gift to him by the will of a moiety was absolute and that the modification introduced by the codicil affected it only so far as was necessary to give effect to the disposition in favor of the children, and that this disposition having failed the absolute gift remained. There are numerous cases analogous in principle to those already cited in which the testator in the first instance divides his property among his children and then proceeds to declare certain trusts respecting the shares of his daughters to secure certain objects for their benefit, in which it has been held that on failure of such objects the absolute gift remained. Whittell v. Dudin, 2 Jac. & W. 279; Hulme v. Hulme, 9 Sim. 644; Mayer v. Townsend, 3 Beav. 443, were of this character. Lord Cottenham in Gompertz v. Gompertz, 2 Phillips, 107, recognizes this principle. Beferring to these cases, he remarks : c ‘ In those cases there was a gift and then a direction as to the manner in which the legacy was to be invested and applied to the benefit of the legatee ; not a diminution or qualification of the original gift, but merely a direction as to the mode in which it was to be dealt with and enjoyed in certain events.” And see, also, for further illustrations of the principle, Ring v. Hardwick, 2 Beav. 352; Winckworth v. Winckworth, 8 Beav. 576; In Re Forster, 1 M. D. & D. 418; Arnold v. Arnold, 16 Sim. 404: Eaton v. Barker, 2 Coll. 124; Dawson v. Bourne, 16 Beav. 29; In Re Young’s Settlement, 18 Beav. 199; Lyddon v. Ellison, 19 Beav. 565, 574; Lassence v. Tierney, 1 McN. & G. 551, 561.
Counsel have cited several cases wherein the legatees were held to have taken life estates which do not seem to us sufficiently in point to affect our conclusion. These cases, with one exception, are cases from Pennsylvania, in which State, as we infer from the remarks of Agnew, C. J., in Bentley v. Kauffman, 86 Pa. St. 99, 101, so far as personalty is concerned, the courts regard the intention of the testator as deduced by them from the will as the controlling principle in their interpretation, without regard to established rules of construction. Hence, their decisions, though doubtless based *584for the most part on reasonable grounds, would hardly be accepted as authoritative in jurisdictions where less latitude of interpretation is allowed.
The first of the cases cited by counsel is Eichelberger’s Estate, 135 Pa. St. 160, 171, in which the testator bequeathed a sum of money to his son Martin to be placed on interest by his executors and the interest thereof to be paid annually to the son during his natural life; in case Martin should die and leave no legitimate heirs of his own body,- then the sum bequeathed to him should revert to the testator’s other heirs. The ground of the decision was that it was the plain intent of the testator that the son should take the interest only of the fund during his life; that at his death it .should go to his children if he had any, and in default of children, to the other heirs of the testator. Though the decision was, doubtless, in accordance with the current of authority in Pennsylvania, we think that generally it would have been held that the legatee took an absolute interest in the fund, instead of a life estate, on the well settled piinciple that language which in a devise of realty would create an estate tail, will, if the property be personalty, give an absolute estate. But, however this may be, the case differs from the case at bar in that it contains a limitation over in case the son should- die without legitimate heirs of his own body, a limitation cutting down the estate given in the earlier part of. the bequest, while in the case at bar the limitations over are predicated on contingencies which must take effect, if at all, before the legatee should take any interest whatever in the fund, and not on contingencies which make the interest defeasible after it had vested.
The second case relied on is Urich’s Appeal, 86 Pa. St. 386. It is to the effect that a fee given in the first paid; of a will may be restricted by subsequent words to a life estate. The will was unskillfully drawn. The testator made certain devises to the devisees and their {c heirs. ” The court found that notwithstanding the use of the word heirs, which would ordinarily create a fee, the testator’s intent that the devisees *585should take life estates only was sufficiently manifest from other portions of the will, and accordingly so held.
In Bentley v. Kauffman, 86 Pa. St. 99, and Ritter’s Estate, 148 Pa. St. 577, also cited hy counsel, the bequests were simply of the interest to the legatees during their natural lives, accompanied in the former by a limitation over of the principal in case the legatee should die without issue.
The last of the cases cited by counsel is Ketcham v. Ketcham, 66 Hun, 608, in which the residue of the estate was expressly given, to the legatees, £ £ to have and to hold the same so long as they should live.”
But apart from the form and language of the bequest itself, the will and codicil contain other indications that Nicholas Brown should take an absolute interest in the fund in question.
There can be no doubt that his child or children, in case they had become entitled to the legacy, were to take the fund absolutely, for the testatrix has expressly so declared. The language of the limitation over to the residuary legatees of this fund is as follows “And in case neither my said grandson, nor any child of his, should take a vested interest in said trust moneys and premises under the preceding trusts, then in trust,-for the person or persons who, for the time being shall be entitled to the residue of my said real and personal estate, under the ulterior provisions of this my will,” &c. It will thus be seen that the interest which the grandson was to take, as well as the interest which his child or children were to take, the latter being unquestionably an absolute estate, are both coupled together and described by the testatrix as a vested interest in the said trust moneys; if the testatrix had intended that her grandson should have merely a vested interest in the income of the fund, she would hardly have failed to perceive the distinction between a vested interest in the income and a vested interest in the trust moneys themselves.
Following the limitation over to the residuary legatees is a proviso that until the trust moneys and premises, that is, said fund and its accumulations, shall vest absolutely in and *586become payable and transferable to some person or persons under the trusts declared, the trustees shall receive and invest the income (except the sum of $350 set apart for the payment of certain annuities created in a subsequent clause) in augmentation of the principal. The testatrix then declares that the annual produce and income, trust moneys, real estate, stocks and securities, and all accumulations of the same, being the said trust fund and its accumulations, as it may chance to have been invested by the trustees, shall go, and be, in trust for the person or persons who under the trusts,, shall become absolutely entitled to the funds from which the same shall have proceeded, &c. When it is considered that the grandson was, not only primarily, but in the event that he survived the testatrix and attained the age of twenty-one years, exclusively to be benefited by the bequest -of the fund and its accumulations, the limitations over being predicated on his death before the happening of these events, and that the testatrix had already directed the payment of the income to him from the time of his becoming twenty-one years of age, there seems to be little room for doubt that when the testatrix directs the accumulation of the income until the trust moneys shall become vested absolutely in and become payable or transferable to some person, or persons and declares that the annual produce and income, trust moneys, &c., shall go and be in trust for the person or person's who shall become absolutely entitled to the funds from which they shall have proceeded, she meant that in case her grandson survived her and attained the age of twenty-one years, that both the annual produce and income, and trust moneys, real estate, stocks and securities themselves, representing the trust fund, should vest in him, as' they would have vested absolutely in his child or children or in the residuary legatees had the limitations over to them respectively taken effect.
Again, this intent is clearly manifested in the clause in the codicil revoking the annuity charged in the will on the estate and income, devised in trust for her grandson. If the testatrix had contemplated that her grandson was to take merely the income of the trust fund during his life, would she not *587have referred to it merely as income, without using the word estate ?
But it is further- contended that whether Nicholas Brown be held entitled to an absolute interest in the fund, or to an equitable estate for life only, the express language of the codicil requires that the fund shall remain in the hands of the trustees for the benefit of the residuary legatees: or, in other words, that if it be granted that the will conferred an absolute estate in the- fund, such interest is made defeasible and passe.d to the residuary legatees as an executory bequest on the happening of the contingency mentioned in the codicil, to wit, in the event of the death of Nicholas Brown leaving no lawful issue living at the time of his decease, who would under the provisions of the will be entitled to said trust property. It is argued that the language expressive of the contingency should receive its literal and natural meaning,- and, hence, that the event of death should be referred in accordance with the general rule of construction to the death of Nicholas Brown whenever it should occur; and that as he left no issue at his decease of any class, and, consequently, none who would, under the provisions of the will, be entitled to the trust estate, the' trusts in favor of the residuary legatees took effect. If the clause in the codicil had revoked or annulled the limitations in the will, so that it stood by itself as an. independent provision, making it unnecessary to refer to the will, there would be force in these arguments. But the clause in the codicil does not purport to revoke or annul the limitations contained in the bequest, and, therefore, the will and the codicil are to be construed together and effect given to the latter only in so far as it modifies or qualifies the former. As the two are to be construed together it becomes necessary to look at the provisions of the will to ascertain whether the event of death referred to in the codicil means death whenever it may occur, or whether the limitations in the bequest are not sufficient to show that the event of death contemplated in the codicil is to be restricted to death within some particular period. We think that the limitations in the bequest sufficiently show that it is to be.so *588restricted. By referring to the terms of the bequest we find that the only issue of Nicholas Brown who would be entitled to the said trust property are such child or children as should survive the testatrix, and they would be entitled only in case their father did not survive the testatrix and attain the age of twenty one years. The clause in the codicil, therefore, taken in connection with the limitations in the bequest is the same as though it read, £ £ And I declare and my will is that in the event of the death of my grandson, Nicholas Brown, before me and before attaining the age of tiveniy one years, leaving no lawful child or children at his decease who shall survive me, then,” &c. The testatrix having fully set forth the limitations in the will did not deem it necessary to repeat them in the codicil.
Joseph C. Ely, for complainants.
Charles M. Salisbury, Arthur L. Brown & Samuel Norris, Jun., for the different respondents.
It is evident, we think, that one of the main objects of the testatrix in making the codicil was to change the naked trusts in the will in favor of her two sons into active trusts and thereby to subject the trust estate in the hands of the trustees to restrictions and limitations calculated to secure in ■ all circumstances which might arise, the 'enjoyment of the trust property to the sons and to their children, or if they had no children, to the sisters and’their children. The accomplishment of this object made it necessary to change the limitation to the residuary legatees in relation to the fund in question, so far as the shares of the sons were concerned. This, it seems to us, was the purpose of the clause in the codicil and not - any intent to change the bequest in other respects.
We see no reason to change the conclusion at which we arrived in our former opinion.
Note. — Tlie will and codicil referred to in tlie above opinion are printed in the Petition of William M. Bailey et al. for an opinion, 13 R. I. 543.