Baker v. National Savings and Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 13 February 1950
• Docket Number: No. 10085.,10085.
• Citation: 86 US App. DC 161,181 F.2d 273
• Parties: BAKER v. NATIONAL SAVINGS AND TRUST CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

86 US App. DC 161, 181 F.2d 273 (1950)

BAKER v. NATIONAL SAVINGS AND TRUST CO. et al.

No. 10085.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued December 9, 1949.

Decided February 13, 1950.

Mr. John Lewis Smith, Jr., Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. John Lewis Smith, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

Messrs. Arthur P. Drury, John M. Lynham and John E. Powell, Washington, D. C., entered appearances for appellees National Savings and Trust Company and Charles Edwin Warfield as surviving trustees.

Mr. Seymour Sheriff, Washington, D. C., for appellees Donald B. Edmonston, individually and as conservator of the property of Joseph B. Edmonston, non compos mentis, and Paul Edmonston.

Mr. Wilton H. Wallace, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Henry F. Lerch, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellees Katherine Virginia Ring, Mary Virginia Ring Young, Elizabeth Morton Ring Bransdorf and Morton Loomis Ring, Jr.

Mr. Hubert G. King, Washington, D. C., Guardian ad litem for appellee Richard Lewis Ring.

Before CLARK, PRETTYMAN and BAZELON, Circuit Judges.

PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia construing a will. 80 F.Supp. 610. The action was brought by the trustees under the will and was decided on a motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by the guardian ad litem for certain infant defendants. The pleadings included a copy of the will itself, statements as to the relationship of the parties, and the course of conduct of the trustees in administering the will since its probate in 1926, but no other facts.

It has been recited times without number that the first and conclusive rule in construing a will is to ascertain the intent of the testator. But in the reported cases from the earliest times the application of the rule has been surrounded with almost incredible fog. The rule is a mandate of the most practical sort. It concerns the mind of the testator, whoever he may have been, and means that the court is to find out what the testator meant to do with his property. Too frequently "the intent of the testator" is treated as a legal abstraction, or as the deduction most agreeable to trained legal minds. It is neither. The intent of a testator is what the testator had in mind.

Intent can usually be seen upon the face of the words used in the will. If so, there is an end to inquiry. But sometimes the language used by a testator does not convey certainty of meaning, and sometimes it conveys no meaning at all to a stranger. In such event, the inquirer must look at the facts and circumstances which surrounded the testator when he made the will. Often otherwise obscure or meaningless language becomes perfectly clear when viewed in the light of the circumstances in which it was written.

This right to examine facts extrinsic to the written words of a will does not include the right to change the written words, if they are clear, or to supply a provision omitted by the testator, or to guess at what his intent would have been if he had thought of a contingency which he plainly did not think of or which is not covered by some general discernible intent. The right to look at extrinsic facts is limited to an effort to understand what the testator meant when he wrote language which, upon its face and without explanation, is doubtful or meaningless.

The confusion which has enveloped this subject is quickly revealed by an examination of the reported cases and law review articles, such, for example, as those collected and discussed in Page on Wills §§ 920, 1086, 1617-1630 (Lifetime Ed.). If there are indications in early opinions of this court¹ that resort can never be had to extrinsic evidence to ascertain the intent of a testator, that impression has long since been dispelled.²

If no actual intent on the part of the testator can be discerned, either from his language alone or from that language viewed in the light of the circumstances which surrounded him when he wrote, the court must construe the will by applying to the language of the testator rules which the law has established as productive of the best results as a matter of public policy.³ Courts frequently describe this step as a presumption of intent; they say that the testator is presumed to have meant what the law has in the past construed equally obscure language to mean, or to have meant the result which the law favors. But this method of describing this process must not be confused so as to permit it to be a substitute for ascertaining the actual intent of the testator. What is called presumption of intent cannot be indulged if a true intent can be ascertained. If no intent can be ascertained, rules of law are applied to the will by the court in order to reach a disposition of the property.

In the case at bar, we do not find the intent of the testator plain upon the face of the will. He left all his property in trust. We need not linger over the provisions applicable during the lifetime of his wife; he left to his granddaughter Nettie W. Baker $100 a month and the balance of the income to his wife. His only child had predeceased him, but he had three granddaughters, whose surnames were Baker, Edmonston and Ring. For the sake of brevity and clarity, we shall call them by their surnames. His disposition of income, after the death of his wife, was: to Baker $100 a month, to Edmonston three-fifths of the remaining income, and to Ring two-fifths. So much is clear. The obscurity lies in the provisions relating to the disposition of the principal of the estate, both as to time and shares. Baker's income of $100 a month was for her life. Edmonston's income was for her life but "for the benefit of herself and her children". Ring's income was until the youngest great-grandchild living at the testator's death should be twenty-one years old. The shares of Ring and Edmonston in the income were to go to their issue, if any, or to the survivor, if one died without issue, until the respective terminations of the trusts.

To the provisions relating to income, the testator added provisions for the termination of "the trusts". He provided that the trusts should cease when his youngest great-grandchild living at the time of his death became twenty-one years old, but he provided that should either Edmonston or Ring be living at that date the trusts created for them should ...