Court Opinion

ID: 9525415
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:03:27.254839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:36.588635
License: Public Domain

Braucher, J.
(dissenting, with whom Kaplan, J., joins). I fully agree with the court’s view that the better rule, to be applied in the exercise of powers of appointment created hereafter, is the rule stated in Restatement of Property § 358 (e) (1940) that, unless the donor has manifested a contrary intent, the donee of a special power can effectively appoint interests to trustees for the benefit of objects of the power. But I also think that rule expresses the probable intention of the donor with respect to both of the powers of appointment involved in the present cases, and that Hooper v. Hooper, 203 Mass. 50 (1909), is not to the contrary. I would therefore hold that both powers were validly exercised.
The present cases involve two powers, created by two distinct instruments. The 1915 inter vivos trust instrument directed the trustees, on the death of the donee, “to pay over” the property, “discharged and free from trust,” to the donee’s “children or issue as she may” by will appoint. The donor’s will, which was executed in 1926 and took *356effect in 1927, directed the trustees, on the donee’s death, “to pay over and convey” the property to “her issue as she may by will appoint.” The court supposes that the donor, a member of the bar, may have relied on the decision of this court in the Hooper case, since that case involved language “virtually identical” to the language of the 1926 will and “substantially similar” to that used in the 1915 trust. But the language of both the will and the trust is significantly different from the language in the Hooper case, and by 1926 the donor was entitled to rely on our statement in Greenough v. Osgood, 235 Mass. 235, 242 (1920): “It is settled that a power of appointment of a fund in favor of children is well exercised by an appointment to trustees in favor of children____”
The first trust considered in the Hooper case was created by a deed providing for payment to “such of” the donee’s “children, if any, and in such proportions as” the donee may by will direct. 203 Mass. at 53. The court treated this language as particularly restrictive: “She is simply to select the persons among the class designated, and is to determine the proportion each one shall take.” Id. at 59. Hence no further trust was indicated. This conclusion was reinforced by contrasting a provision in the same sentence for appointment of an equitable estate to the donee’s surviving husband. In the particular case the appointment was in trust for the donee’s children and their issue, and the only surviving member of the class was the donee’s daughter. Since “the attempt of the donee to create equitable life estates was not warranted by the power,” the donee’s daughter took the entire estate in default of appointment. Ibid.
The second trust considered in the Hooper case was created by a will providing for payment to the donee’s children “in such manner and in such proportions as” the donee may by will direct. Id. at 54. “Here the language creating the power is different from that in the deed,” the court said, “and perhaps the scope of the power is to a certain extent less circumscribed as to the quality of the estate which may be created under it.” Id. at 59. But the result was the same, on the different ground that “there *357is no reason why” the donee’s daughter, “being the only person interested in the estate, should not receive the whole. There is no reason for the trust.” Id. at 62.
In my opinion the powers in the present cases are more like the second power considered in the Hooper case than the first. In the present cases the property is to be paid to issue “as” the donee may appoint. This is even broader than “in such manner as” she may appoint, since her choice is not limited to “manner.” The present powers are far less limited than a power to appoint to “such of her children, if any, and in such proportions as” she may appoint, if the latter formulation is read as limited to choice of persons and proportions.
In the absence of particular restrictions, we have held that a power of appointment in favor of children was well exercised by an appointment to trustees for the children. Greenough v. Osgood, 235 Mass. 235, 241-242 (1920). In that case we distinguished the Hooper case, “wherein the donee of a special power of appointment was held to have a mere power of selection among her children and to determine the proportion each one should take in the principal of a trust fund held by trustees for the life use of the donee.” Accord, North Adams Nat’l Bank v. Commissioner of Corps. & Taxation, 268 Mass. 42, 45 (1929). See Lovejoy v. Bucknam, 299 Mass. 446, 451-455 (1938), and cases cited. The same principle has been applied to the exercise of a general power. Slayton v. Fitch Home, Inc., 293 Mass. 574, 578 (1936). Cf. Garfield v. State St. Trust Co., 320 Mass. 646, 654-657 (1947). In such cases it makes no difference that the donor directs his trustees to “convey” the property to the appointees, “discharged of all trusts.” See Cumston v. Bartlett, 149 Mass. 243, 244 (1889). I find no such particular restriction in the present cases as to prevent application of the “settled” rule of Greenough v. Osgood, supra.