Court Opinion

ID: 9745845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:35:51.543424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:05.289641
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting: I agree with the opinion of the court that the testator intended to give a life estate to his wife, followed by a life estate to his son Stanley, followed by a remainder in fee to Stanley’s children. But in my opinion the remaining provision for sale of the farm at the death of Stanley’s children, and distribution of the proceeds to the testator’s brothers and sisters or their children, is repugnant to the preceding fee interest and also violates the rule against perpetuities. The trial court so concluded. I think that conclusion was correct, and that the decree should be affirmed. The opinion of the court treats the gift to Stanley’s children and the gift to the testator’s brothers and sisters and their children as alternative contingent remainders. This construction was not suggested by the parties either in the trial court or in this court. The testator could conceivably have intended such a disposition, but I find nothing in what he said to suggest such an intent, and much to suggest the contrary. He dealt with the death of his son Stanley, and provided that “at his death” Stanley’s -children were to have the farm “in their own right." He dealt with the death of Stanley’s children, and provided that “then at their death” the farm was to be sold and the proceeds distributed to his brothers and sisters and their children. The only meaning that I can see in this language is that the testator regarded the deáth of his son, and the death of his son’s children, as separate in point of time. The opinion of the court reads the second of the two phrases, “at his death”, and “then at their death” to mean “in the event that they die before he dies.” Apart from the fact that this reading results in potential intestacy on the part of a testator whose only sin seems to have been overanxiety to be sure that his will disposed of all of his property, the simple language of the will does not support the labored construction it has received. That construction depends largely upon the fact that the widow has renounced the will, a circumstance that has nothing to do with the intention of the testator. Absent renunciation, her life estate might continue beyond the death of her son. The provision for the sale of the farm at the son’s death, which the opinion of the court has written into the will, would then supply a new inconsistency. Stanley’s son, Thomas, was 23 years old when the case was tried. If the deaths in the family follow the orderly pattern that the opinion of the court seems to anticipate, no great practical harm is likely to result from the court’s construction. But if Thomas should have a child and then predecease his father, the farm would not go to the testator’s great grandchild, but to the testator’s brothers and sisters and their children.