Court Opinion

ID: 9864756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:09:41.922686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:33.279228
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.

The plaintiff in error seeks to distinguish Olliffe v. Wells, cited in the opinion, and claims that the ground of the decision in that case was that the testatrix so left her property that the trust could not be enforced if the trustee should die, and claims that the language of the court in that case in regard to oral directions given before the execution of the will is not a statement of a rule of law but only of the condition or situation of the then present case. We think, however, that the decision of the case rests on the legal proposition, stated by the court, that the testamentary trust was invalid if it depended on oral directions by testatrix whether given before or after the execution of the will; but if a trust is invalid when the beneficiaries cannot be ascertained after the trustee’s death,.we think that the present trust is invalid. The will points out no way to identify the beneficiaries except the knowledge of W. H. Frazier and S. D. Draper. If they were dead or beyond jurisdiction, or refused to execute it, the trust could not be enforced.
Rehearing denied.