Court Opinion

ID: 9636632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:36:10.692523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:47.562886
License: Public Domain

*658O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). A testamentary trustee may legally accumulate surplus income only when the will expressly or impliedly authorizes him to do so. Hoadley v. Beardsley, 89 Conn. 270, 280, 93 A, 535. The will under consideration is devoid of any express direction to accumulate. In finding an implied direction, the majority reach a conclusion with which I cannot agree.
If the language by which a testator has expressed himself renders his intention uncertain, the doubt may properly be resolved by examining the will in the light of the circumstances surrounding him when he executed it. The circumstances in this case are highly illuminating and point unmistakably, it seems to me, to the fact that the disposition of surplus income was completely overlooked by the testator. If this be true, the surplus is intestate estate. New Haven Bank v. Hubinger, 117 Conn. 417, 423, 167 A. 914.
This was the will of a very feeble man, dying from cancer of the esophagus. On July 29, 1934, an exploratory abdominal operation was performed on him. Oral feeding became impossible by August 16 and from then until he died, a few weeks later, nourishment was provided by intravenous injections. Between 4 p. m. and 8 p. m. on August 24, he received blood by transfusion in preparation for a desperate gastroenterostomy which was to be performed the following day. Almost immediately after the transfusions were completed, an attorney was admitted to the bedside to draft a will which the testator had expressed a desire to execute. The two men talked together for less than twenty minutes. The attorney was given no information as to the size of the testator’s estate or the ages of the annuitants. Not a word was spoken by either man concerning the disposition of surplus income. Indeed, nothing was said about the possibility that the trust income might at *659some future time exceed the requirements of the annuity payments. This was an understandable omission. As in 1932, when the testator had executed a prior will, the nation was crippled by a major economic depression. Returns from investments had shrunk from previous levels and in many instances had entirely disappeared. Both in 1932 and in 1934, it was natural for the testator to be concerned, as he was, not with the possibility that at some future time the trust income might become greater than was necessary to pay the stated yearly sums which he wished his wife, father, mother and sister to enjoy, but rather with the probability that it would prove insufficient for that purpose. This is clearly borne out by the trend of the conversation which he had with the attorney. The one dominant thought which the testator stressed, as he explained his wishes, was the absolute necessity of maintaining the annuities at the amount at which he had set them, even if this required an invasion of the principal. When, then, he ordered his trustee, at the termination of the trust, to turn over to the Yearly Meeting the principal “as then constituted,” he was anticipating, not that the principal would be enhanced by the addition of surplus income, but rather that it would be depleted by invasions made to maintain the annuities.
The opinion ignores a recital of these revealing circumstances, in the light of which the will discloses nothing to spell out the intent which the majority attribute to the testator. As in the Hubinger case, the possibility of surplus income did not enter the dying man’s mind. The will reflects the discussion between him and the attorney, who immediately thereafter prepared a draft of the instrument and presented it for formal execution.
It may be that had the testator thought about surplus income he would have ordered its accumulation. That, *660however, is not the point. The fact is that he completely overlooked the matter. Under the guise of construction, the majority are adding to his will a provision which the testator did not even consider. For a more comprehensive analysis of the position which I take, reference is made to the excellent brief filed on behalf of the defendant Ethel M. Jones. A-283 Rec. & Briefs 73.