Court Opinion

ID: 9754440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:00:36.394913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:53.416792
License: Public Domain

*1207NICHOLS, Justice,
dissenting.
Today’s majority reaches a result plainly contrary to the intent of the testator who, as the Superior Court found, wanted to pass this property on to his daughter after the death of his second wife. I must respectfully dissent.
Wanda Lawrence, the stepmother here, owes to her remainderman, Edith Philoon, “the highest duty to act honorably and in good faith.” In Matter of Estate of Harry L. Kreie, 235 Kan. 143, 679 P.2d 712, 719 (1984). Often the life tenant is described as the “quasi-trustee for the remainder interests.” Wiktorowicz v. Haley, 251 A.2d 794, 796-97 (Me.1969); Hardy v. Mayhew, 158 Cal. 95, 105, 110 P. 113, 117 (1910).1 So long as the life tenant acts in good faith in conveying the property she does not “transcend her authority.” Hoxie v. Finney, 147 Mass. 616, 18 N.E. 593, 594 (1888). As used in law the phrase “in good faith” means honestly, without collusion or deceit, without pretense. Waugh v. Prince, 121 Me. 67, 70, 115 A. 612, 614 (1921).
The life tenant’s exercise of the broad power granted her by will must be founded upon a reasonable judgment, having due regard for the rights of those whose interests may be injuriously affected by its exercise. Lovett v. Famham, 169 Mass. 1, 47 N.E. 246, 247 (1877).
Central to this controversy is the fact expressly found by the Superior Court, and amply supported by the record, that Wanda Lawrence’s deed to her close friend of some forty acres of the homestead in Turner was given “to defeat the intent of Almon Lawrence.” Further, the court expressly found that the stepmother had sufficient assets and independent means to provide for her comfortable support and care. Moreover, the record is replete with evidence of her animosity toward Edith Phi-loon.2
Therefore, I cannot join today’s majority when the Court so blithely brushes aside the stepmother’s duty as a fiduciary and absolves her of any breach of the requirement of good faith while condoning the stepmother’s conveyance to her close friend “in trade for” services already rendered by the friend. Thus Mrs. Lawrence contrived to defeat the clear intent of her late husband to pass this property upon her death to his daughter, Edith Philoon.
This is a case, I submit, where we should follow the logic of a line of cases highlighted by Stocker v. Foster, 178 Mass. 591, 60 N.E. 407, 409 (1901). There the grantee under a life tenant’s deed stressed the latter’s broad powers to sell and dispose of the estate just as today’s majority is emphasizing similar language in the Almon Lawrence will, but the Massachusetts court refused to rule that the power given in the will was an unlimited power to sell and dispose of the property. The life tenant’s “comfort” for which that will provided was his physical comfort, declared the court, and not the perverse satisfaction he might find in doing another out of his legacy.
For the same reason in another case the Iowa court held that where a will authorized the life tenant at any time and to any extent to dispose of the property for her comfort, enjoyment and happiness, the life tenant was not justified in conveying the property because of a desire to deprive the remainderman of his interest in the property. Watkins v. Dean, 243 Iowa 599, 52 N.W.2d 498, 500 (1952). See also Lovrien v. Fitzgerald, 242 Iowa 1258, 1264-65, 49 *1208N.W.2d 845, 848 (1951) (life tenant’s exercise of power must be in good faith).
By similar reasoning in still another case the Ohio court found a widow, as life tenant, to be a quasi-trustee for those in remainder, and a third party acquiring the property by collusion with her to the injury of those in remainder was found to hold the same as a trustee for them.
The testator, having so amply provided for the support of his wife, evidently contemplated good faith on her part toward [the remaindermen]. He therefore gave her the right to consume, but not to recklessly squander or give away the estate.
Johnson v. Johnson, 51 Ohio 446, 461, 38 N.E. 61, 64-65 (1894).3
In none of these three cases was relief conditional upon a showing of fraud.
True to the teaching of Restatement, Restitution § 168(1) (1937) and Restatement, Trusts, 2d § 288 (1959),4 in the case before us, the Superior Court’s finding of a bad motive was tantamount to the finding of a breach of good faith by the stepmother. Thus the court concluded that this breach voided the conveyance of most of the acreage to her close friend.5 Today’s majority forsakes that teaching. Indeed, it breaks a new trail that fails to impose any good faith requirement whatsoever on the life tenant. The majority’s error is in gazing at the periphery of the stepmother’s discretion when the majority should instead have been focusing on the duty she owed Edith Philoon, a duty that significantly narrowed the scope of her discretion under this will.
I would affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

. It is not a pure trust because it exists only in the sense that the duty rests upon the life tenant to have due regard for the rights of the remain-derman and not to injure or dispose of the property to the latter's detriment. Mallett v. Hall, 129 Me. 148, 153-54, 150 A. 531 (1930).

. As we look to the four corners of the instrument to determine the testator’s intent, In Re Estate of Thompson, 414 A.2d 881, 887 (Me. 1980), we observe that the same paragraph of the will which devised the remainder interest to his daughter provided that she should have "whatever proceeds or substitute property then remains.” Certainly, it cannot be said of this widow that she exercised her power "in accord with the exact terms of the will.”

. Cf. Windscheffel v. Wright, 187 Kan. 678, 360 P.2d 178 (1961) (the life tenant who had deeded property to her spouse held to occupy a fiduciary relationship to the remaindermen, and conveyance was void); Lord v. Roberts, 84 N.H. 517, 153 A. 1, 4 (1931) (life tenant’s judgment not reviewable if he acted in good faith); Callihan v. Russell, 66 W.Va. 524, 66 S.E. 695 (1909); Cales v. Dressler, 315 Ill. 142, 146 N.E. 162, 164 (1924) (subterfuge not permitted to defeat testator’s intention); 1 Tiffany, Law of Real Property § 7 (1939).

. Comment (a) to § 288 is analogous and pertinent to the problem before us:
The interest of the beneficiary in the trust property is not cut off by a transfer by the trustee in breach of a trust to a third person who at the time of the transfer has notice that the transfer is in breach of trust, although he paid value for the transfer; and the beneficiary can in equity compel the third person to restore the property to the trust. The third person holds the interest which he acquires by the transfer upon a constructive trust for the beneficiary of the trust.

.If the Superior Court read a requirement of necessity into the stepmother’s power to convey it was at most harmless error after that Court had found her conduct to be equivalent to a breach of good faith and for that reason voided the conveyance.