Court Opinion

ID: 9733269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:00:49.931022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:40.061597
License: Public Domain

Duncan, J.,
dissenting: It is my opinion that the plaintiff herein is not entitled to the advice which the opinion of the majority undertakes to give. In the first place, this is not a petition for advice or instructions. Secondly, the advice given cannot protect the plaintiff as testamentary trustee in the discharge of any fiduciary duties, because by the terms of the devise which it interprets there can be no distribution until he has deceased; and furthermore he is not entitled to advice concerning contingencies which may never arise. Cadbury v. Parish, 89 N. H. 464; Keene v. School District, 89 N. H. 477, 482 and cases cited; In re Estate of Gay, 97 N. H. 102, 105.
In the third place, the giving of advice in these proceedings is all the more anomalous because it cannot aid in drafting a deed. As the last paragraph of the majority opinion indicates, the owners of the property at the death of the fife tenant cannot now be determined, and any conveyance must be in trust in the language of the will, and cannot run to them as individuals. Moreover, under the terms of the statute, the plaintiff, or whoever is appointed statutory trustee (RSA 477:39), is required to “hold . . . the proceeds” for the benefit of the owners (RSA 477:42) and jurisdiction of ultimate distribution is vested in the probate court. RSA 477:43. Hence the conveyance is required by the statute to be made to the statutory trustee. Accordingly I would answer in the negative the first question transferred.
My dissent is further prompted by the answer given to the second question. I find nothing in the will to indicate that when *108the testator used the word “issue,” the ordinary meaning of which happens to be embodied in a statutory definition found in RSA 21:20 (Sylvester v. Newhall, 97 N. H. 267; Kimball v. Penhallow, 60 N. H. 448), he intended that other statutory provisions relating to intestate descent and distribution (RSA 551:1) should be utilized to require in given contingencies that certain of his “issue” should take by representation or per stirpes rather than “in equal shares” as the will expressly provides. See Sylvester v. Newhall, supra. Compare the wills before the court in Thyng v. Lane, 69 N. H. 403; Petition of Wolcott, 95 N. H. 23, 25; Amoskeag Trust Co. v. Haskell, 96 N. H. 89.