Court Opinion

ID: 9808320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:33:49.361045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:04.076770
License: Public Domain

AlleN, J.,
dissenting: The question to be decided on this appeal is the validity, as an alleged charitable trust, of item “i” of the will of J. 0. Tise, which reads as follows:
“All of the residue and remainder of my estate, which it is intended shall include my property in Stokes County, N. C., at Vade Mecum' Springs, to be set apart and held in special trust to (1) conserve, protect, and beautify said property; (2) contribute to the construction of suitable roads to and through the premises as well as railroads, should such opportunity offer; and (3) erect thereon a commodious and permanent auditorium or assembly room for the meetings and gatherings of educational, religious, scientific, medicinal, and other worthy organizations or associations. My object and hope being that the same may be developed into and become not only a watering resort, but an institution after the order of a chautauqua:”
It will be noted that there is- no limit as to the beneficiaries of the trust, and thát they are all “educational, religious, scientific, medicinal, and other worthy associations” throughout the world, and as such I think it is too indefinite to be enforced.
The authorities on the question are numerous, but I shall only refer to three or four North Carolina cases taken from brief of appellant which, I think, are decisive.
In Bridges v. Pleasants, 39 N. C., 26, it was held that a bequest, “to be applied to foreign missions and to the poor saints; this to be disposed of and applied as my executor may think the proper objects according to the Scripture, with the greater part, however, to be applied to missionary purposes,”, was too indefinite and, therefore, void, notwithstanding the executor had accepted the trust and had formed a scheme for administering it whereby the trust fund would be used in accordance with the purpose of the donor.
Ruffin, C. J., said: “The paper must tell us the testator’s meaning or we can never find it out. . . . Wherever the aid of the court is *333invoked there must appear some right in the person who applies, or for whose benefit it is sought, to support a gift by will. In the present case it is impossible, from anything appearing in the will, to conjecture how, by whom, or in whose favor these sums of money were to be administered. "What kind of ‘foreign missions/ whether diplomatic or religious, or, if the latter, of what sect or to what countries, no man can say. So, likewise, of the ‘home missions.’ The gift to the ‘poor saints’ is equally indefinite. . . . The poor of the country or city are proper objects of such charity, for the objects 'of bounty are readily known, and their number easily ascertained, and the gift is in fact to the public. But the ‘poor saints,’ if it coitld be known who they are at all, are not mentioned in the will as of any county, nor country; but, if any can take, all such persons throughout the world are to share in it, which is preposterous.”
In Holland v. Peck, 37 N. C., 255, the testator directed his executors to pay certain moneys “for the benefit of the Methodist' Episcopal Ohurch in America, whereof Francis Asbury is the presiding bishop, this sum to be disposed of by conference or the different members composing the same, as they shall, in their godly wisdom, judge will be most expedient or beneficial for the increase and prosperity of the gospel.” It was held (Gaston, J.) to be a devise upon trust, and void for indefiniteness.
It was further held that the precise purpose of the testator in the bequest cannot be collected therefrom. The disposition of the money is directed to be made by the conference “as they shall, in their godly wisdom, judge will be most expedient or beneficial for the increase and prosperity of the gospel.” The distribution of the money is to be the advancement of the gospel. But the means by which that end is to be effected are left entirely to the uncontrolled discretion of the conference. Is the money to be employed in building churches, in establishing schools, in paying ministers, in publishing books, or in supporting the poor? . . . It is certainly the general rule that, where property is given upon a clear trust but for uncertain objects, the subject of such trust is regarded as undisposed of, and the benefit of the trust results to those to whom the law gives the property in default of disposition by its owner. In the case of a trust, there must be somebody in whose favor the court can decree a performance.”
After pointing out what the doctrine of a trust in favor of the next of kin in such case does not obtain in England because of the doctrine of cy pres, the Court, speaking of that doctrine, says:
“The principle is admitted to be unsound, and several of the decisions founded upon it are revolting to common sense. . . . But we have no instance in this State . ... where this extravagant doctrine on *334the subject of charities has ever been, acknowledged. . . . By affecting to consider charity as the substance, and all else as but the formal part of a will, and compelling the testator to be charitable in our way, when we do not know in what way he purposed to be charitable, or when the charity he purposed can be executed, we shall, in effect, be making a will for him where he is silent, and altering it when his declared intention necessarily fails.”
A bequest “to some promising young man of good talents and of the Baptist order, to be selected by my executors,” is void “because of its indefiniteness. There is no person who can claim it.” Hester v. Hester, 37 N. C., 330.
A devise that land should be sold and “the proceeds laid out in building convenient places of worship, free for the use of all Christians, who acknowledge the divinity of Christ and the necessity of a spiritual regeneration,” is void for uncertainty. White v. University, 39 N. C., 19.
In stating the general grounds upon which gifts to public charitable uses will be sustained in equity, Ruffin, G. Jdeclared the doctrine of this Court to be that such gifts will be sustained “when not opposed to the express provisions or the plain policy of the law, provided the object is so specific that the Court can by decree effectuate it, by compelling the execution of the will, according to the intention of the donor, and keeping the subject within the control of the Court, so as to have the will of the donor observed. ... It seems to us that it would be impossible for the Court to keep any control over such persons or property; and, therefore, that this is a trust, which the Court cannot undertake to execute, since it cannot execute it effectually.”
These cases have been frequently affirmed, and in all of them the purpose of the testator was as commendable and as definitely expressed as in the one before us.
Indeed, I do not see how a trust could be made more indefinite and uncertain than one to all “worthy organizations or associations,” embracing, as it does, the whole world.
It is also doubtful if this is a charitable trust as it does not appear that it is a gift, and there is nothing to prevent the trustee from making the usual charges for accommodation at fashionable resorts, which would be prohibitive to a majority of the membership of the different organizations referred to in the will.
I think the judgment of the Superior Court ought to be reversed.
'Walicek, J., concurs in this opinion.