Court Opinion

ID: 9749298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:32:29.459236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:46.097826
License: Public Domain

Hammond, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion:
The majority of the Court holds that the legacy to the children of the testator’s nephews and nieces was not a *290class gift, but a gift to contemplated and designated individuals with added description, and I concur. This is equivalent to a gift to George Marion, son of my nephew. The Court decides that if George Marion was not the son of his nephew, misdescription prevails over the designation (in that it nullifies the gift) because it is supposed that testator would want this result. In situations where there must be a choice between a designation and a misdescription, neither course is easy to travel nor is the end of the road a haven of complete satisfaction. Yet, to me it seems that the majority has chosen the wrong road and reached the wrong destination. In the absence of fraud, undue influence or compelling evidence to the contrary, the one absolute or certainty in the problem is that the testator named the individual who is to take and he should take, as the cases cited in the opinion of the majority hold. This Court adopts the conclusion of the chancellor that “it was likely” that the testator did not know George Marion was not the son of his nephew. This is an assumption—it was not proven—and if he did not know, he was not deliberately misled—fraud is not claimed—and the legatee had nothing whatever to do with any belief testator may have had. If it be assumed for the argument that Dr. Davis thought George Marion to be the son of his nephew, how can anyone ever know, or with any degree of certainty believe, that he would not have included him in the description of children or nephews and nieces? If his nephew regarded him, and so held him out as a son, this may well have been enough for Dr. Davis to so regard and treat him. He did not name the great-grandnieces or nephews, nor, as far as can be told, were they distinct personalities to him. Apparently, he thought of them in relation to nieces and nephews who were known personalities to him and whom he named. • He was good to the nephew who, for all practical purposes, had adopted George Marion. He sent him money for support and must have had an affection for him. How, except for speculation, can it be decided that the controlling motive for the gift to George Marion *291was that he was thought to be a blood relative and not because Dr. Davis thought of him in the same way as did the nephew? Significant in this regard, and unfavorable to the reasoning of the Court, is that Dr. Davis wanted known individuals to take and not all of his great nephews and nieces because they were such. If this were not so, he could have made a class gift which closed at his death or at a later named time.
If, for argument’s sake, it be assumed that it is likely that the testator did not know the facts and would have reacted as the Court has reacted for him if he had, is a will to be judicially rewritten because of no more than a belief that a testator would have acted as a court thinks he should have? Against any likelihood as to what would have been done, on any given belief, there stands the one indisputable fact that an intelligent testator left a legacy to George Marion. Why he did so, in what belief, or whether he would not have done so if there had been another belief, can only be a matter, to use the phrase of Smith v. Diggs, 128 Md. 394, 399, of “wildest speculation.”
I would affirm the decree.