Court Opinion

ID: 9691056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:06:15.180691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:09.752451
License: Public Domain

Dethmers, C. J.
{dissenting). I do not concur in affirmance. The cases are myriad which hold that the duty of the court in interpreting or construing a will is to ascertain, from all its parts, the true intent of the testator and, where lawful, to give it effect. They run from Jameson’s Appeal, 1 Mich 99, to In re Lawton Estate, 347 Mich 143. As said in In re Scheyer’s Estate, 336 Mich 645, 648, 649 (38 ALR2d 835):
“ ‘The primary rule of construction is to ascertain the true intention of the testator. That intention must be ascertained from a consideration of all the provisions of the will itself and in the light of the circumstances surrounding the testator at the time the will was made and his relations with the several objects of his bounty. Having so ascertained his intention, it is the duty of the court to give that intention effect if that be legally possible.’ Kirsher v. Todd, 195 Mich 297, as quoted with approval in Re Miner’s Estate, 201 Mich 115, 120.”
The trial court found:
“Harriet Pee gave her husband, in whom she justly had full confidence, the right to determine the final use of her trust fund. Primarily, however, she and her husband wanted the money to go to Hidden Lake Hardens and Harriet Pee expected her husband to so permit it unless the gardens were not being properly cared for or used by the State board.”
The will and record support and confirm that finding. The will is clearly expressive of an intent and general plan and purpose of testatrix to provide a *150continuing source of funds which, together with income from a trust fund to be created by her husband out of his own assets, would be used by the State board of agriculture to develop and maintain Hidden Lake Gardens for the benefit of the public. Hoes a reading of the entire will permit of the conclusion that it was the testatrix’s intent that that clearly expressed general plan and purpose should fail if her husband declined to heed her suggestion of the mechanics whereby his gift might be made and, instead, elected another but equally adequate vehicle for his contribution to the implementing of that general plan and purpose? Hoes the will disclose an intent that her plan for what was to be done with her money should be subordinate to her suggestion to her husband of how his contribution might be made ? Hid that “how” mean more to her than the “what”? Every intendment of the will is to the contrary. The fact that the wife’s will speaks of the means by which her husband might effectuate her plan and purpose as being by the creation of a trust “by his will,” rather than inter vivos, seems to me to reflect little more than the assumption on her part that her husband, named in her will as the life beneficiary of the income of her trust estate, would choose to enjoy rather than dispose of the benefits of that income and of his own properties throughout his lifetime, even as she had done during hers. The provision that the husband should create a trust out of his own funds by will is less demanding on his largesse than would be a requirement that he do so inter vivos. There is nothing in reason nor common sense, much less in the will or record, to suggest an overriding intent on the part of the testatrix that her general plan and purpose with respect to Hidden Lake Gardens should be defeated if the husband’s performance of the condition laid down therefor by the terms of her will should occur at an earlier time and at a greater *151sacrifice to liim than her will contemplated, or required. I see no force in the view of the trial court that the testatrix’s controlling purpose was that her husband’s creation of the trust fund should be by will rather than inter vivos in order to defer to the instant of his last dying gasp the time when he might finally determine whether defendant board was still deserving of their mutual bounty. Inasmuch as his will would have had to be executed during his lifetime, perhaps, as the case proved to be here, no earlier nor later than the time which he might select to create a trust inter vivos, the extent of the assured postponing of the evil day of decision would be illusory at best. Nor is it reasonable to believe that the wife, who evidenced by her will so complete a confidence in the judgment of her husband in the premises as to be willing to permit him to direct the flow of her own benefaction to the Hidden Lake Gardens and the defendant board by voice from the grave, intended to deny him the right, in the exercise of the selfsame judgment, to announce and make the gift certain during his lifetime. He did everything contemplated by the wife that was required by the terms of her will to implement her plan and purpose, unless it be held to have been the supervening intent of testatrix, as expressed in her will, that the irrevo-cability of his action should be deferred to his death. I am unwilling to hold that the will makes anything so purposeless under all the mentioned circumstances the controlling factor.
Though involving different facts and immediate questions of will construction than those at bar, the cases of In re Ives’ Estate, 182 Mich 699; In re Hunter’s Estate, 212 Mich 380; and In re Hicks Estate, 345 Mich 448, are relevant and properly cited by defendant board for the pertinent proposition that the presence or absence of certain words in a will is to be disregarded whenever necessary in order to give *152effect to the manifest intent and purpose of the testator gathered from the entire will. Consonant therewith, I would consider the words “by his will” as being suggestive or permissive only and deny them any mandatory effect which would serve to defeat the testatrix’s intent, purpose and plan as disclosed by the will itself.
In Aldrich v. Aldrich, 40 RI 324, 331, 332 (100 A 882), the court said:
“The rule as to construction in such cases is well established, and is clearly stated in 2 Woerner’s American Law of Administration, § 416, as follows: Tt is a familiar and very important rule, also, that the general intention is to control the particular intention, if there be an irreconcilable inconsistency between them. Where, for instance, the will directs a purpose to be accomplished, and also points out the means by which the result is to be reached, which means turn out to be inadequate to accomplish the end, so that the provisions cannot both be carried into effect, it is evident that the directions pointing out the means must be sacrificed to the accomplishment of the end, if the end can be accomplished by other means; for otherwise the testator’s intention is entirely defeated.’ See, also, 40 Cyc, p 1393; 1 Red-field on Wills (4th ed), 433; Schouler on Wills (2d ed), § 468; 30 Am & Eng Encyc of Law, p 687; 1 Jar-man on Wills (6th ed), 575.”
In Thompson on Wills (3d ed), § 215, p 332, it is said, “The manifest general scheme and purpose of the testator as contained in the whole will must prevail over a strict grammatical construction of isolated clauses and sentences,” citing Martin v. Thompson, 191 Ky 102 (229 SW 112); Manning v. Manning, 229 Mass 527 (118 NE 676); Sears v. Childs, 309 Mass 337 (35 NE2d 663); First Methodist Church of Vineland v. Pennock, 130 NJ Eq 452 (22 A2d 889); Roberts v. Claster, 49 Dauph (Pa) 256. *153Again, in section 218, pp 338, 339, it is said, “The general intention to accomplish a certain end will control a particular intention relative to the means of accomplishing it, if the means provided are inadequate and the general intention can he accomplished by other means,” citing Cox v. Anderson, 24 Ky L Rep 1081 (70 SW 839); Demeritt v. Young, 72 NH 202 (55 A 1047) ; Aldrich v. Aldrich, supra; Holmes v. Walter, 118 Wis 409 (95 NW 380, 62 LRA 986). ' The same should he said of the employment of a means more prompt and efficacious than that suggested by the will. The intention of testatrix to accomplish a certain end should be held to control the suggestion relative to the means of accomplishing it, denying that suggestion the power to thwart accomplishment of her general plan and purpose by other means.
In my view, the husband’s creation of the first trust fund constituted full compliance with those terms of testatrix’s will upon which defendant State board of agriculture’s rights were made contingent, and that trust became the repository into which the benefits under her will were to flow. The second inter vivos trust was merely supplemental.
Decree below should be reversed. A decree should enter in this Court in accord with this opinion, with costs to defendant board.
Sharpe, J., concurred with Dethmers, C. J.
Carr, J., did not sit.