Broadway National Bank v. Adams

• Decision Date: 29 June 1882
• Citation: 133 Mass. 170
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: Broadway National Bank v. Charles W. Adams & another

133 Mass. 170

Broadway National Bank v. Charles W. Adams & another

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

June 29, 1882

Argued November 18, 1881

Suffolk.

Bill dismissed.

The case was argued at the bar in November 1881, and reargued in March 1882, by J. R. Churchill, for the plaintiff; by R. D Smith & W. W. Vaughan, for the defendant Adams; and by E F. Hodges, for the trustee.

OPINION

Morton C. J.

The object of this bill in equity is to reach and apply in payment of the plaintiff's debt due from the defendant Adams the income of a trust fund created for his benefit by the will of his brother. The eleventh article of the will is as follows: "I give the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars to my said executors and the survivors or survivor of them, in trust to invest the same in such manner as to them may seem prudent, and to pay the net income thereof semiannually, to my said brother Charles W. Adams, during his natural life, such payments to be made to him personally when convenient, otherwise, upon his order or receipt in writing; in either case free from the interference or control of his creditors, my intention being that the use of said income shall not be anticipated by assignment. At the decease of my said brother Charles, my will is that the net income of said seventy-five thousand dollars shall be paid to his present wife, in case she survives him, for the benefit of herself and all the children of said Charles, in equal proportions, in the manner and upon the conditions the same as herein directed to be paid him during his life, so long as she shall remain single. And my will is, that, after the decease of said Charles and the decease or second marriage of his said wife, the said seventy-five thousand dollars, together with any accrued interest or income thereon which may remain unpaid, as herein above directed, shall be divided equally among all the children of my said brother Charles, by any and all his wives, and the representatives of any deceased child or children by right of representation."

There is no room for doubt as to the intention of the testator. It is clear that, if the trustee was to pay the income to the plaintiff under an order of the court, it would be in direct violation of the intention of the testator and of the provisions of his will. The court will not compel the trustee thus to do what the will forbids him to do, unless the provisions and intention of the testator are unlawful.

The question whether the founder of a trust can secure the income of it to the object of his bounty, by providing that it shall not be alienable by him or be subject to be taken by his creditors, has not been directly adjudicated in this Commonwealth. The tendency of our decisions, however, has been in favor of such a power in the founder. Braman v. Stiles, 2 Pick. 460. Perkins v. Hays, 3 Gray 405. Russell v. Grinnell, 105 Mass. 425. Hall v. Williams, 120 Mass. 344. Sparhawk v. Cloon, 125 Mass. 263.

It is true that the rule of the common law is, that a man cannot attach to a grant or transfer of property, otherwise absolute, the condition that it shall not be alienated; such condition being repugnant to the nature of the estate granted. Co. Lit. 223 a. Blackstone Bank v. Davis, 21 Pick. 42.

Lord Coke gives as the reason of the rule, that "it is absurd and repugnant to reason that he, that hath no possibility to have the land revert to him, should restrain his feoffee in fee simple of all his power to alien," and that this is "against the height and puritie of a fee simple." By such a condition, the grantor undertakes to deprive the property in the hands of the grantee of one of its legal incidents and attributes, namely, its alienability, which is deemed to be against public policy. But the reasons of the rule do not apply in the case of a transfer of property in trust. By the creation of a trust like the one before us, the trust property passes to the trustee with all its incidents and attributes unimpaired. He takes the whole legal title to the property, with the power of alienation; the cestui que trust takes the whole legal title to the accrued income at the moment it is paid over to him. Neither the principal nor the income is at any time inalienable.

The question whether the rule of the common law should be applied to equitable life estates created by will or deed, has been the subject of conflicting adjudications by different courts, as is fully shown in the able and exhaustive arguments of the counsel in this case. As is stated in Sparhawk v. Cloon, above cited, from the time of Lord Eldon the rule has prevailed in the English Court of Chancery, to the extent of holding that when the income of a trust estate is given to any person (other than a married woman) for life, the equitable estate for life is alienable by, and liable in equity to the debts of, the cestui que trust, and that this quality is so inseparable from the estate that no provision, however express, which does not operate as a cesser or limitation of the estate itself, can protect it from his debts. Brandon v. Robinson, 18 Ves. 429. Green v. Spicer, 1 Russ. & Myl. 395. Rochford v. Hackman, 9 Hare 475. Trappes v. Meredith, L. R. 9 Eq. 229. Snowdon v. Dales, 6 Sim. 524. Rippon v. Norton, 2 Beav. 63.

The English rule has been adopted in several of the courts of this country. Tillinghast v. Bradford, 5 R.I. 205. Heath v. Bishop, 4 Rich. Eq. 46. Dick v. Pitchford, 1 Dev. & Bat. Eq. 480. Mebane v. Mebane, 4 Ired. Eq. 131.

Other courts have...