Court Opinion

ID: 9752948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:46:53.552159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:26.196184
License: Public Domain

*288Prescott, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Marbury, J., concurred.
All members of this Court are in entire accord upon two aspects of the case, namely, that Walter R. Clark, whose last will and testament unfortunately requires judicial construction due to alleged ambiguities contained therein, was a dearly beloved and highly esteemed member of the bar of this state; and the matter for determination was ably presented to this Court by counsel representing all parties.
The majority opinion sets forth eleven rules or canons relating to the construction of wills. They are all well recognized and have been long established. There is no difficulty in stating the rules of construction; the difficulty arises in determining which one or ones should be applied in any particular case. I think that rules (1), (6), (7), (8) and (9) as stated in the majority opinion should control our decision here, rather than the Court’s rewriting Mr. Clark’s will upon the assumption that it has conclusively discovered the testator’s overall intention and that words should be changed and constructions given to certain parts of the will, so as to accomplish this assumed intention.
There can be no doubt that the cardinal rule of construction in interpreting wills is that the testator’s intention should prevail; but this intention, when the wording of the will is clear and unambiguous, must be discerned from the will itself as evinced by the language of the testator. Judge Markell, in Ridgely v. Pfingstag, 188 Md. 209, 228, 50 A. 2d 578, stated: “When the words of a will are of doubtful meaning, or necessarily imply a gift which they do not in terms express, the courts lean toward a construction which avoids an intestacy. When the meaning of the words is clear, and contains no such necessary implication, the courts can not make a new will for the testator to supply an omission and avoid an intestacy.” (Italics mine.) And Chief Judge Marbury, for the Court in McCurdy v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 190 Md. 67, 76, 57 A. 2d 302, stated the principle in this manner: “We cannot, of course, rewrite the testator’s will for him. We cannot guess how he would have reworded his will had he known what *289were the difficulties which would arise from the way he wrote it.” See also Smith v. Baltimore Trust Co., 133 Md. 404, 105 A. 534, Perkins v. Iglehart, 183 Md. 520, 39 A. 2d 672; Cameron v. Frazer, 187 Md. 368, 50 A. 2d 243; Abell v. Abell, 75 Md. 44, 63, 23 A. 71.
I do not find paragraph Fifth (b) II, set forth in full in footnote 1 of the majority opinion, ambiguous. Mr. Clark was an outstandingly able lawyer. In plain language, he simply set aside an aliquot part of his residuary estate and directed that the income derived therefrom should go to his brother for life; and upon the brother’s death the income from the part should be paid “unto his widow and any of his children who may survive him in the proportion of one-third to the widow (emphasis added) and the balance to his surviving children,” until the children attained twenty-one years of age, at which time the trust as to the children should cease, and any child’s proportionate part of the corpus paid to the child. If any such child died before reaching twenty-one years of age, leaving issue, the issue would take the parent’s share per stirpes. It was at this point that Mr. Clark probably should have stated where the children’s two-thirds portion of this part was to go, if his brother died without issue. However, this does not create an ambiguity in the language he used; it simply means (in my opinion) he stopped, probably through oversight, his alternative dispositive provisions too soon, if he were to avoid an intestacy as to the childrens’ portions, in the event his brother died without issue. Mr. Clark then concluded this paragraph of his will by providing that upon distribution to the child last attaining twenty-one years of age, “the income on one-third of this part (emphasis added — it will be noted the majority awards the brother’s wife the entire income for life) shall be paid to my brother’s widow during her lifetime; then upon her death that part of the corpus shall be distributed under item Sixth hereof.” Unless an ambiguity in the language used by Mr. Clark can be shown (and I repeat the mere failure to include complete alternative provisions so as to dispose finally of all portions of the property involved in this paragraph does not create an ambiguity) the above *290mentioned principles should be applied, and the Court should not resort to conjecture as to what Mr. Clark may or may not have done with the children’s two-thirds portion of this part.
Judge Allen found below that in order to carry out the assumed intention of the testator it was necessary to insert a semi-colon after the word “widow,” and to change the words “and any of his children who may survive him” to the words “and if any of his children survive him,” and also to change or construe the word “certain” in item Sixth to mean “any.” The majority opinion states: “Without changing a word of the will, we read the words of Fifth (b) II providing income for life ‘to his widow and any of his children who may survive him [in the proportion of one-third to the widow and the balance to his surviving children * * *]’ as meaning ‘to his widow; and if any of his children survive him1 [in the proportion of one-third to the widow and the balance to his surviving children * * I have diligently tried to follow this construction evolved by the majority, but frankly every time I do so, I find myself “stuttering” mentally. It would serve no useful purpose to analyze further this specific holding. It obviously changes completely the ordinary and usual meaning of the terms used by Mr. Clark, and does so “without changing a word of the will.” Much was said, and rightfully so, of the strong presumption against partial intestacy when a will contains a residuary clause. It is doubtful that any man, who ever decided to make a will, intended a partial intestacy (unless the will specifically so provided), yet the cases are legion where such situations have developed. Rule of construction (9) mentioned by the majority states: “It is a very extraordinary will where a residuary clause does not prevent a partial intestacy, unless some part of the residue itself he not well given. * * * (Emphasis added.) This is, of course, true; but it must be remembered that the portions of the brother’s widow and children were part and parcel of the residuary clause of Mr. Clark’s *291will. Partial intestacies were found in the following cases, where the wills contained residuary clauses, but the testator failed to dispose of a portion of the residue. Smith v. Baltimore Trust Co., supra, Henderson v. Henderson, 131 Md. 308, 101 A. 691; Church Extension v. Smith, 56 Md. 362; Abell v. Abell, supra; Geo. Washington Univ. v. Riggs Nat’l Bk., 88 F. 2d 771 (D.C. App.). See also 2 Redfield, Wills, (3rd Am. ed.), 119, and 2 Jarman, Wills (5th Am. ed.), 368, wherein it is stated: “When the disposition of an aliquot part of the residue itself fails from any cause, that part will not go in augmentation of the remaining parts, as a residue of residue, but will devolve as undisposed of.”
I think that the brother’s wife was clearly left the income on one-third of the part of the residuary estate disposed of in item Fifth (b) II for her life — not the entire income from this part for life; and with reference to the remaining two-thirds, Mr. Clark attempted to leave it to a person or persons (the brother’s child or children), who are non-existent and can never exist, without making an alternative disposition of the remainder, which means an intestacy as to this two-thirds.
Judge Marbury has authorized me to say that he concurs in the views expressed above.

. Exactly the same result reached by Judge Allen, but without “changing a word in the will.”