Court Opinion

ID: 9532055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:17:30.031034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:39.683968
License: Public Domain

EBEESPACHEE, P. J., dissenting: I would affirm the decree of the circuit court. In my opinion the Will of Henry A. Otta lacks the strong language that would be necessary to determine that his manifest intention was to permit his executor, either innocently or designedly, by expediting or delaying distribution, to control the distribution of property to which the son had a de jure right. I find no language in the Will that would make the remainder interest contingent on August Otta’s having the money from the proceeds of the sale in his hand. In the absence of any devise or bequest of the remainder interest, other than what might he inferred by the sixth clause, it would seem unnatural to require that testator’s son would have to have the money in the bank or jingling in his pocket before he could call it his own. At no place does the testator specifically tie the right to take to the time of distribution or payment, nor are the gifts to the children expressly conditioned on their being alive at such time. “In the absence of a clear indication that the testator intended that there should be an indefeasible vesting in the original beneficiary only if he should survive to an actual receipt of the bequest, the inclination of the courts, when called upon to construe a will providing for a gift over in the event of the death of the first taker before he receives or is paid a legacy, is to regard the gift over as having reference to death before the legacy is de jure payable.” 142 ALB 137. The sound reasons for this rule are well pointed out in a number of English decisions, cited in the same annotation. In Wengerd’s Estate, 143 Pa 615, 22 A 869, 13 LBA 360, the court said: “It would be straining a point to hold that this testator intended that his grandchild should be deprived of his share, though he should die leaving a child or children, by the mere accident of his death the day before the money was distributed. This would enable an executor, under some circumstances, absolutely to defeat the will of his testator, by withholding or refusing distribution for a certain period. We cannot assume that this testator intended to lodge such a power in the hands of the executor of his will.” Since each will must be construed in the light of its particular phraseology and the facts and circumstances surrounding the testator at the time of its execution, decided cases do not have the controlling force of precedents in matter of construction of a will that they have in other instances; a will is a writing found in a great variety of forms and executed under circumstances peculiar to each individual case. Unless a will case cited is in all respects directly in point and agrees in every circumstance with the case before the court, it will have little or no weight. Ickes v. Ickes, 386 Ill 19, 53 NE2d 585; Cahill v. Michael, 381 Ill 395, 45 NE2d 657; Johnston v. Herrin, 383 Ill 598, 50 NE2d 720. For this reason the cases cited in the majority opinion, are not stare decisis in this case. A line of Illinois cases holding to the contrary can likewise be cited; See Costello v. Warnisher, 4 Ill App2d 571, 124 NE2d 542; Wiener v. Severson, 11 Ill2d 347, 143 NE2d 225; Wattjes v. Faeth, 379 Ill 290, 40 NE2d 521. Our courts have consistently held that words occurring more than once in a will are presumed always to be used in the same sense. Ickes v. Ickes, supra; Gridley v. Gridley, 399 Ill 215, 76 NE2d 146; Bostwick v. Bostwick, 301 Ill App 196, 22 NE2d 272. The first use of the word “then” is found in the sixth clause when the executor is directed to sell all real estate “then remaining undisposed of at the termination of my wife’s life estate.” There can be no question that it there refers to the termination of the life estate. The presumption obtains that testator’s subsequent use of the word “then” in that clause refers to the same time, namely, the termination of the life estate. The fact that what is bequeathed under the sixth clause, is the proceeds from the sale of the real estate and not the real estate, does not lend any support to appellant’s position in this case. The case of Hull v. Adams, 399 Ill 347, 77 NE2d 706, held specifically that the fact that the testator directed the farm to be sold and the proceeds divided does no more than to work an equitable conversion, and the gift, technically speaking, becomes a bequest instead of a devise but the right of the beneficiaries therein is the same in either instance. Obviously, the only reason for creating the life estate of testator’s wife in the real estate was to provide for her support and maintenance. After her death the steps directed to be taken can be said to have been ministerial — that is, securing a buyer for the land, making the sale, obtaining payment, and making distribution of the proceeds. Twenty years had passed between the execution of the will and the contingency. As is said in Costello v. Warnisher, supra, “it is common sense to note that events separated by short intervals of time, contemplated in the perspective of a remote contingency, are thought of as simultaneous.” The intervals between the death of the widow, sale of the property, and distribution of the proceeds were viewed only with a contemplation that these events would be concurrent. In this case, from the lack of a more explicit word than “then,” distantly separated from a time or event to which it might be said to refer, it is obvious that if the remote contingency of the son’s death within the relative short time between the widow’s death and the directed distribution were contemplated or considered, the contemplation was as hazy as the language used to provide for such remote contingency. The eighth clause of the will, instead of supporting the contention that the children had no interest until distribution was made, is a recognition of their interest in the period between the widow’s death and the distribution. Eather, it is only a limitation on those recognized interests, made for the purposes incidental to the orderly administration of testator’s estate. If the children had no right in their gifts until distribution, that clause was not necessary, and when we determine testator’s intent from the entire instrument, we are led to the logical conclusion that testator recognized that the children become the owners upon the life tenant’s death, subject to defeasement by the sale. To carry out the desire for orderly administration expressed in the seventh clause, it was necessary to place the duty to perform the necessary ministerial acts, for an orderly procedure during that interim, in some one person, and it was only natural that the executor who was to make the sale should be that person. It is to be noted that testator intended him to control the husbandry of the land in the interim period, recognizing that such interim period would exist; but he did not see fit to give the executor any more authority than would be absolutely necessary to make the distribution which testator desired. The case of Klocksieben v. Orris, 317 Ill App 115, 45 NE2d 504, appears to be the most recent Illinois pronouncement of the rule that despite the lack of a clear indication on the part of a testator, the beneficiary had no legacy, unless he survived to have the money in hand. In that case the court held that the personal representative of the daughter’s estate was not entitled to the proceeds of the sale of the land, but that the same should go to the heirs of the body of the daughter because the gift to the daughter was defeasible not alone by her death prior to that of the life tenant, but also by her death prior to the time of actual distribution. It did not follow the view that the gift over will not take effect in the absence of a clear indication to the contrary, unless the first taker dies before the gift is de jure distributable. The case is commented upon in a lengthy discussion of gifts over on death found in Illinois Law of Future Interests, Cayey and Schuyler, 1941, sec 159, 1947 Cumulative Pocket Part. There the authors say “The decision is not free from doubt; it is clear, however, that a substitutionary gift may be expressly conditioned upon death before the time of distribution or upon the death of the remainderman only before that of the life tenant.” Expressly means, in direct or unmistakable terms; its synonyms are, explicitly, definitely and directly. Furthermore, that case lacks the similarity of facts, language and circumstance that would make it applicable here. The language used in the Klocksieben case, created vested remainders which in some instances were expressly divested, and evidenced the intention by the expression of the desire that the gift over should go to “the heirs of his or her body” indicating that a widow of a deceased child was under no circumstances to take an interest. A further marked difference is, that in the Klocksieben will the time of the sale of the real estate was fixed at a time throughout a period of four years following the death of the life tenant, indicating that the testator contemplated that a relatively long period of time might elapse between the death of the life tenant and the sale.. The Klocksieben case was not followed by our Supreme Court in 1957, in Wiener v. Severson, supra, nor by the First District Appellate Court in 1955 in Costello v. Warnisher, supra. In 1949, commenting that Illinois is committed to the rule favoring the early vesting of estate, that there was a lack of express words of survivorship, and that the testator’s chief purpose was to keep the estate intact, a United States District Court in Illinois in Hodson v. Jordon, 82 F Supp 183, recognized that the primary remainder-man becomes absolutely and indefeasibly entitled to the property where he survives the payment of the debts; and pointed out that under Illinois Law vested interests, subject to be divested are subject to execution process. The failure to use express language, from which a clear manifest intent can be determined, should defeat a rule that would require the beneficiary to survive the ministerial acts to be performed by the executor, and allow the executor, by design or accident, to determine whom the beneficiaries might be.