Court Opinion

ID: 9755845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:55:09.9002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:12.179893
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell :
I dissent (a) because a declaratory judgment is not the appropriate remedy under the decisions of this Court, and (b) because the devise to Walter was made solely upon a clearly expressed contingency which has never yet happened. I shall discuss these in their inverse order.
1. Testator’s intention governs.
If there is any principle clearly settled in the law of Wills it is that the testator’s intention governs, and that intention or “meaning must be ascertained from the language of his will; it is not what the Court thinks he might or would have said in the existing circumstances, or even what the Court thinks he meant to say, but what is the meaning of his words: Conner’s Estate, 346 Pa. 271, 29 A. 2d 514; Ludwick’s Estate, 269 Pa. 365, 112 A. 543”: Britt Estate, 369 Pa. 450, 454, 455, 87 A. 2d 243.
The majority, in order to reach its conclusion, has to first ignore the language of and then rewrite the testator’s will. This is not a case where testator devised the residue of his farm (with the buildings thereon, together with all farm implements, stock and furni*123ture) to Walter, and then provided that his single children may live there until their death or marriage; this is not a case of a devise to Walter if testator’s single children abandon the farm for a few years or forever; this is not a case of a devise to Walter and no gift over; this is not even a case of a life estate to single children or a personal privilege to single children to occupy the farm as a home, with a gift thereafter to Walter. This is a case where a will clearly and specifically directed the residue of the farm (a) “to be kept as a home for such of my children as may remain single”; and then (b) upon the death or marriage of such single children, a devise to Walter (testator’s youngest son), if he is then living; and (c) if he is not then living (i.e., “in case of his death before the death or marriage of such of my children remaining single . . .”) a devise to “the youngest of my children living at the death or marriage of the surviving child for whom said home is provided in this, my will.”
Walter’s claim is opposed by his sister, Carrie, who claims a life estate, and by his sisters, Teresa Low and Mary Westgerdes, who assert that they, as testator’s youngest surviving children, have a contingent interest in remainder.
Put in simple language, this is not a devise to Walter in fee simple, subject to a life estate or even to a personal privilege in testator’s single children to occupy the farm as a home; it is a devise to Walter only if he is living at the death or marriage of the last of testator’s children who remain single; and if at that time Walter is not living, testator devised the farm to his youngest then living child. Has the latter no rights at all; has the testator no right to give his farm to Walter and, alternatively, to his youngest living child upon such terms or conditions or contingencies as he desires?
*124The majority opinion has ignored the rights and remainder interest of testator’s youngest child (living at the death or marriage of his last single child) and has given to Walter what the testator did not give him, namely, a fee simple estate upon the happening of an event which is different from the event upon the happening of which testator gave the farm to Walter. A gift to Walter upon a contingency different from that which was specified by the testator clearly flies in the teeth of the language of testator’s will and defeats testator’s clearly expressed intention.
The language of testator’s will, considered in its entirety, clearly gives an interest or estate in the farm to his single children for life or until marriage; and upon their death or marriage, testator gave the farm to Walter if he was then living, and if he was then dead, to testator’s youngest living child. The majority opinion admits that if Carrie was given a life estate or an estate until her marriage, as Carrie and her two youngest sisters claim — and as the testator himself provided — “such an estate could not be lost or forfeited by abandonment.” How can one find only a personal privilege in the single children when each alternative gift over is conditioned not upon the termination or abandonment of that privilege, but solely upon the death or marriage of his single children?
2. Declaratory judgment.
Irrespective of the merits, to allow a declaratory judgment proceeding to construe a will, under the facts in this case, is contrary to our authorities and in my opinion is a grievous mistake. Lifter Estate, 377 Pa. 227, 103 A. 2d 670; Eureka Casualty Co. v. Henderson, 371 Pa. 587, 591, 92 A. 2d 551; Sterrett’s Estate, 300 Pa. 116, 123, 124, 150 A. 159. Such a precedent, unless or until repudiated, will forever haunt us.
*125Walter had been living on and working the farm undisturbed and unmolested for 18 years; no one questioned his possession or his rights or his interest; there were no antagonistic claims and there was no litigation which was threatened or imminent and inevitable. Moreover, if Walter survives his sister, Carrie, the contingency provided for by testator will have happened and Walter will unquestionably become vested with a fee simple title without any controversy or litigation whatever.
In Sterrett's Estate, 300 Pa., supra, the Court dismissed a declaratory judgment petition which sought the interpretation of two wills which were either supplementary or conflicting. Speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Moschziskeji the Court said (pages 123-124, 125) : “In Kariher’s Petition (No. 1), 284 Pa. 455, 472, we said that, ‘in a declaratory judgment proceeding the court mil not decide future rights in anticipation of an event which may not happen,* but . . . will wait until the event actually takes place, unless special circumstances appear which warrant an immediate decision Here the future rights of those claiming under either one of the two wills . . . made by the daughters of decedent, rest entirely on anticipation of events which may not happen, namely, the death of Laura without issue and without a valid exercise of the power of appointment contained in her father’s will. . . . Moreover, from the Kariher Case down to our latest utterances on the subject of declaratory judgments, in Taylor v. Haverford Twp., 299 Pa. 402, this court has uniformly ruled that relief may not be granted under the Act of June 18, 1923, P. L. 840, where another established remedy is available. ... As recently said by us in Taylor v. Haverford Twp., supra, ‘We *126are determined that the Declaratory Judgments Act, an excellent piece of legislation when kept within proper hounds, shall not be used in cases to which it is not properly applicable,’ and this is one of them.”
The guiding principles and limitations for declaratory judgments were clearly expressed in Lifter Estate, 377 Pa., supra, from which we quote: “In Eureka Casualty Co. v. Henderson, 371 Pa. 587, 92 A. 2d 551, Mr. Chief Justice Stern said (pages 591, 592) : ‘. . . whether or not a court will take jurisdiction of a petition for a declaratory judgment or decree is purely a matter of judicial discretion. ... It was said in Capital Bank and Trust Company’s Petition, 336 Pa. 108, 111, 6 A. 2d 790, 792; “. . . the vital factor in the assumption of jurisdiction is the presence of antagonistic claims indicating imminent and inevitable litigation, coupled with a clear manifestation that the declaration sought will be a practical help in ending the controversy
“The facts in the instant case bring it within the aforesaid requirements; the problems involved are so unusual and difficult, litigation was so imminent and inevitable, and the peril to the Federation was so great and immediate that we consider this to be an appropriate matter for a declaratory judgment.”
There are a number of adequate remedies available to plaintiff other than a declaratory judgment proceeding if an actual controversy as to his rights should arise. If we allow a declaratory judgment proceeding in this case it will virtually supersede and exclude the ordinary proceedings in the Orphans’ Court to determine the validity or construction of a will; and in those cases where a life estate or prior estate has not terminated, it will conflict with all our cases which have unqualifiedly held that rights in remainder cannot be adjudicated until they actually arise. It will *127also become the general, if not the exclusive, remedy (1) whenever the interpretation of a deed, or a written contract, or an insurance policy is involved; and (2) in cases where ejectment, or a bill quia timet, or a bill for specific performance, or assumpsit for purchase money, or an action under Pa. R. C. P. 1061 would lie; and likewise (3) whenever a person’s rights or status or other legal relations are affected by a statute or by a municipal ordinance, or involve a franchise. It will inevitably supplant all of these actions. Such a broad construction of the Act of June 18, 1923, P. L. 840, §2, is unnecessary, unwise and contrary to our cases and the principles heretofore established by this Court.
Assuming jurisdiction in this case and in similar cases cannot help but make bad law — irrespective of what theorists may think — because it is inevitable that in many cases all of the parties having a real or possible interest will not be before the Court, or all the facts which may exist at the time the actual controversy ripens may not be known, or may not be alleged at the time the petition for a declaratory judgment is presented.
Furthermore, if a petition for a declaratory judgment will lie in this case, obviously we will have to decide in the near future 50 to 500 important and pressing questions arising out of Philadelphia’s City Charter which will involve actual controversies with litigation imminent and inevitable, and which will have far, far greater public importance than the question involved in this case. How can the majority of this Court reconcile this decision with their recent déeision in the Philadelphia City Charter case of Clark v. Meade, 377 Pa. 150, 104 A. 2d 465, where they refused, over my vigorous objection, to consider and decide the questions of tremendous public importance which were specifi*128cally raised in tbe petition for a declaratory judgment in that case!
For these reasons J would hold that a declaratory judgment is not-a proper or appropriate remedy and the petition for the same should be dismissed; but if it were appropriate, I would affirm the judgment of the lower Court and hold that the devise to Walter was contingent upon his living at the death or marriage of testator’s surviving single child, and said contingency has not yet happened.
Mr. Justice Musmanno joins in this dissenting opinion.

 Italics throughout,. ours.