Court Opinion

ID: 98531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:44:45+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:43.114875
License: Public Domain

238 U.S. 572 (1915)
CHATER
v.
CARTER, EXECUTOR OF HARTWELL.
No. 544.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued April 30, May 3, 1915.
Decided June 21, 1915.
APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF HAWAII.
*582 Mr. Robbins B. Anderson for appellees.
MR. JUSTICE PITNEY, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.
We have here a trust declared in writing by the late Judge Hartwell, of Hawaii, a man of ample means and of long experience as a practicing lawyer and judge, the father of seven daughters, four married, three unmarried, of whom five were named and in some way provided for in the trust instrument. The subject of the controversy is 585 shares of the stock of the Hawaiian Sugar Company, for which a certificate accompanied the trust instrument, the certificate being in the name of "Alfred W. Carter as Trustee for Charlotte Lee Hartwell Chater;" separate certificates being at the same time issued and delivered to Mr. Carter as trustee for Juliette Hartwell and Dorothy *583 Hartwell, respectively, and a certificate for 250 shares in the name of Charlotte Lee Hartwell Chater being also delivered to him.
The date of the trust instrument is March 27, 1909. The particular clause out of which the controversy arises reads as follows:
"The trust for Lottie Lee is to cause the dividends to be paid to her during the three years from January 1st next and if she shall then be living to transfer the shares to her or hold them in trust for her benefit as she may in writing request, unless at the end of the three years she shall have no child living, in which case the trustee is to hold the stock paying her the dividends during her lifetime, with power to change the investment and vary it at any time at discretion and at her death to divide the trust funds or securities equally among her sisters who shall then be living, and if none shall then be living among their children then living, my object being, as Mr. Chater will observe, that as to these additional 585 shares they shall remain in my family."
The substance of this was copied into Judge Hartwell's explanatory letter to his son-in-law, Mr. Chater, dated two days after the trust instrument, and which all parties have treated as throwing a legitimate light upon the meaning of that instrument.
The trust for Mrs. Chater was evidently created in view of her approaching maternity, an event that occurred about four months before "January 1st, next," and was followed by her death on the 3d of September, 1909, leaving a son, who still survives. The question is, Who is entitled to the shares of stock and to the dividends accruing after January 1, 1910?
Appellants contend (1) that upon the establishment of the trust accompanied by the delivery to the trustee of the stock certificate naming her as beneficiary, an equitable title passed to Mrs. Chater subject only to *584 the trust, and that when the trust expired by its own limitations the legal title followed the equitable title and became vested in Mrs. Chater's estate; or (2) that there was a vested future interest in Mrs. Chater, which did not lapse upon her death; or (3) that even if the gift to Mrs. Chater was not vested there was an implied gift to her son upon her death prior to January 1, 1913. And, in any event, it is contended (4) that the gift of the dividends to Mrs. Chater for the period of three years from and after January 1, 1910, was absolute and passed to her estate.
Appellees contend, on the other hand, that by the terms and true meaning of the trust instrument there was no present gift to the beneficiary, expressed or implied, creating any interest, legal or equitable, but only a direction to the trustee to pay or transfer the subject of the trust to the beneficiary at a future time upon express condition that she were then living; that her death before the first of January, 1910, defeated the trust as to the dividends as well as the principal; and that since the trustee was thus left without directions or authority to transfer the stock or the dividends to any beneficiary, and could not hold them for himself, a resulting trust arose in favor of the donor.
The declaration of trust is in the form of a letter, and is clearly and simply phrased, without employment of technical terms. In seeking its true construction, little assistance can be had from technical rules. The guiding principle must be, to seek the intention of the settlor. We mean, of course, his intention as expressed. Not, What did he intend to say? but, What did he intend by what he did say? must be the test.
We cannot yield to the argument that because the stock certificate was caused to be issued in the name of Mr. Carter as trustee for Mrs. Chater there was a present transfer of the equitable title to her, subject only to the terms of the declaration. The mention of her name in *585 the certificate had its proper purpose in earmarking the stock and identifying the trust to which it pertained; but the terms of that trust must be found in the accompanying letter.
In construing it, we are not called upon to strain the meaning of words, as is sometimes done to avoid intestacy when wills are to be construed. Judge Hartwell evidently contemplated that Mrs. Chater was to become a mother, and he makes the ultimate disposition of the stock (if she survives) turn upon the question whether she shall have a child or children living at the end of the designated period of three years from January 1, 1910; yet he makes no provision for the child in the event of her death in the meantime. And even the payment of dividends to Mrs. Chater is postponed until January 1, 1910. We are left without explanation of this, unless it be attributable to a purpose that the inception of the trust should depend upon her surviving the perils of childbirth. We must therefore reject the theory that there was a vested future interest in Mrs. Chater or an implied gift to her child in the event of her death prior to January 1, 1913. As to the dividends, the gift of these must likewise be treated as contingent upon her surviving to receive them; for it was not even a gift in terms, but only a direction to pay them to her during the three years from January 1, 1910.
The main purpose, as expressed, was to hold the principal fund until January 1, 1913, when, if Mrs. Chater were living and had a living child or children, she should decide for herself whether to take the fund into her own hands or allow the trustee to continue to hold it for her benefit; but if she had no child living, the trustee was to hold the fund, giving her the income only, and at her death dividing the fund among her sisters, etc.,  "my object being, as Mr. Chater will observe, that as to these additional shares they shall remain in my family."
*586 Mrs. Chater was the chief object of the bounty. What she was to receive, and when she was to receive it, were stated in plain terms. Beyond this, we think there are none of the implications that are deemed to arise in cases of wills.
But the event that happened  her death before January 1, 1910  although evidently in contemplation as a possible event, was not provided for. What then happens? The trust has failed; the trustee is functus officio; he cannot in equity retain the fund for himself; he must simply redeliver it to him from whom it came. In other words, there is a resulting trust for the donor.
The entire matter is so fully and satisfactorily discussed in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Hawaii that we need not further elaborate it.
Decree affirmed.