Court Opinion

ID: 9613193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:15:13.110053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:26.715711
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
LUM, J.
The majority concludes that the term “children” as used in the trust instrument refers to issue of only the first generation, that income shall be distributed per stirpes to issue of the first generation, and that the corpus shall be distributed per capita among the settlor’sgrandchildren who are living upon termination of the trust. I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the decision of the lower court and hold that the settlor’s dispositive plan was to effect a per stirpital distribution of the trust income and of the corpus.
Intention of the settlor is the paramount consideration in the construction of a trust instrument and that intention is to be gathered from the whole instrument and is not limited to any particular clause. In re Weill’s Estate, 48 Haw. 553, 406 P.2d 718 (1965).
Thus, in the case at bar, the settlor’s intention is to be ascertained from a consideration of the trust instrument as a whole and not from its disjointed fragments. When looking at the Lopez trust instrument as a whole, the corpus provision must be read in a light consistent with the income provision. Beginning with the language in the income section, the settlor manifested an intent to substitute children for parents in the event the parents were deceased. This substitution was to continue beyond the first generation.
The settlor’s testamentary plan contemplated a trust of long duration. There is nothing in the trust to indicate that the settlor intended that the trust should be narrowly interpreted to deprive great-grandchildren of their fair share. I conclude that the settlor used the term “children” to mean “issue” throughout the trust instrument.
This conclusion is supported by the well recognized rule that where language is equivocal a construction enuring to the benefit of *61remote lineal descendants is preferred to one which favors immediate issue exclusively. See In re Carnegie’s Estate, 397 Pa. 308, 155 A.2d 349, 353, 355 (1959), and In re Clark’s Estate, 359 Pa. 411, 59 A.2d 109 (1948).Also, Peters and McLean v. Vannatta, 41 Haw. 249, 266 (1955).
In the case at bar, the general trust plan of the settlor was to provide for the issue of his “named eight” children. To be consistent with this general trust plan, the term “children” ás used in both the income and corpus provisions of the instrument must be construed to refer to the lineal descendants of the “named eight.” Further, as pointed out by this court in Peters and McLean v. Vannatta, supra, where the devisees bear different degrees of relationship to a testator or settlor, the per stirpes distribution must be upheld if the question of distribution is in doubt. Id. at 266. To be consistent with the settlor’s general trust plan and with the rules governing equivocal language, the corpus distribution must be made on a per stirpital basis.