Court Opinion

ID: 9673089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:06:03.499226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:20.159549
License: Public Domain

Hall, J.
Specially Concurring:
I concur in everything which is said in the original opinion. This is against my individual sympathy in the matter because I graduated from Mississippi College and have always regarded it very highly, but my feeling toward the institution cannot make me ignore what I conceive to he the settled law in this case.
Section 269 of the Mississippi Constitution originally read as follows: “Every devise or bequest of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any interest therein, of freehold or less than freehold, either present or future, vested or contingent, or of any money directed to be raised by the sale thereof, contained in any last will and testament, or codicil, or other testamentary writing, in favor of any religious or ecclesiastical corporation, sole or aggregate, or any religious or ecclesiastical society, or to any religious denomination or association of persons, or to any person or body politic, in trust, either express or implied, secret or resulting, either for the use and benefit of such religious corporation, society, denomination, or association, or for the purpose of being given or appropriated to charitable uses or purposes, shall be null and void, and the heir at law shall take the same property so devised or bequeathed, as though no testamentary disposition had been made.” It is very clear that under this section prior to its amendment the will would be utterly null and void. It is a well-known fact that the religious leaders of the state desired to change the Constitution so as to permit a bequest of land and a wide campaign of propaganda was carried on with the result that Sec. 270 was adopted in lieu of the foregoing section and also in lieu' of the old Sec. 270 of the Constitution. This was at the November, 1939 general election, hut under our law the amendment which the people had voted did not become a part of the Constitution until the legis*229lature, by Chapters 325 and 326 of the Laws of 1940, adopted on January 18, 1940 by a concurrent resolution, inserted the new Sec. 270 in lieu of the old Secs. 269 and 270.
In order to induce the people to approve the proposed change the leaders specifically provided that land should not be held for a period of more than ten years after the devise becomes effective. As pointed out in the controlling opinion, Dr. May executed his will on December 11, 1939, after the people had voted in favor of the proposed amendment, and he was undoubtedly thoroughly familiar with the amendment.
The new Section 270 specifically limits the time to 10 years after the devise becomes effective. Dr. May knew this for he specifically provided in his will that the College, “at the proper time”, is to convert the land into cash and then the cash, — not the land, is to be held as a perpetual trust fund or endowment, etc.
I am unwilling to give my assent to any subterfuge whereby the effect of Sec. 270 can be nullified, especially on the theory that the land is merely held in trust and may be held indefinitely. If we should ever accept such a theory, we would simply be repealing Sec. 270 in toto, which I am unwilling to do.