Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Prindle
| Decision Date | 01 May 1935 |
| Citation | 195 N.E. 793,290 Mass. 577 |
| Parties | BOSTON SAFE DEPOSIT & TRUST CO. v. PRINDLE et al. (two cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Case Reserved from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk and Middlesex Counties.
Bills in equity for instructions by Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Company against Frances Carruth Prindle and others, which were consolidated for hearing. On reservation for the full court upon the pleadings, master's report, and interlocutory decree confirming it.
Order in accordance with opinion.
R. W Hardy, of Boston, stated the case.
W. D Turner, of Boston, for respondents.
N Morss, of Boston, for respondents Miles Washburn Weeks and Emily Frances Dix.
M. F. Weston, of Boston, for respondents Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co., executor, William Grainger, and Westley S. Burnham.
These two cases were consolidated for trial and were reserved for the full court upon the pleadings, the master's report and the interlocutory decree confirming the same. There were no objections to the master's report or to the confirmation thereof. Each case is a bill in equity for instructions. The same trust company is the plaintiff in both cases. In the Suffolk case the plaintiff is trustee under a trust indenture from one Tripp, who conveyed as a ‘ straw’ for Antoinette H. Saville. In the Middlesex case the plaintiff is trustee under the will of Antoinette H. Saville. The issues in the two cases are practically identical. The ultimate question in each case is whether Henry Martyn Savile, son of said Antoinette H. Saville, by his last will executed certain powers of appointment conferred upon him by his mother's said deed and will.
The portion of said trust indenture material to the case at bar gave to Henry Martyn Saville the power to appoint one half of the principal of the property under the trust ‘ to those persons whom the said Henry Martyn Saville shall appoint by his last will, and in default of such appointment said one half of said principal shall be paid over as follows: a. One half thereof to those persons who would have been entitled to the personal estate of the said Antoinette H. Saville under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts then in force, if she had died intestate immediately after the death of the survivor of said Henry and Emily.’ By subsection ‘ b’ a similar disposition was made as to the remaining half of the above mentioned property to those entitled to the personal estate of her husband Dr. Henry Martyn Saville if he similarly died intestate. By her last will the said Antoinette bequeathed to the plaintiff, as trustee, other property, with a power of appointment to said Henry Martyn Saville upon terms similar to those above set forth.
Antoinette H. Saville died October 29, 1928. Her husband, Dr. Saville, had died before her. Her son Henry Martyn Saville died September 26, 1933, a resident of Providence, Rhode Island, leaving a will which has been duly proved and allowed in Rhode Island, and in which the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company is named as executor. This company has been appointed and has duly qualified as such executor. The question is whether the power of appointment was exercised by any of the following clauses of the will of Henry Martyn Saville, and if so, by which clause.
The fourth clause of said will reads: ‘ I direct and authorize my said executor to set aside the sum of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) and to divide the same into ten equal portions of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) each, and to dispose of said one-tenth portions as follows: (a) From the first of said portions I direct my said executor to pay the following legacies: (1) To the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000).’ Then follow legacies to churches, cousins (including Mabel D. Burnham and Frank W. Burnham), other relatives, clergymen, both at home and abroad, certain named young people, and a direction to his executor to purchase books with funds from his residuary estate. The bulk of the $100,000 is left to the younger members of the Burnham and Grainger families and Richard P. Breaden, some of these legatees to take out-right and others to take as beneficiaries of the trusts set up by the will. The eighth clause reads: ‘ All the rest, residue and remainder of my real estate, wherever situated, of which I shall die seized, possessed, or entitled, or as to which I shall have the power of disposition or appointment at the time of my decease, I give, devise and bequeath in equal shares to the children of my said cousin, Frank W. Burnham, and to the children of my sister in law and cousin, Anna H. Grainger, to have and to hold to them, their heirs and assigns, forever.’ The ninth clause of the will reads: ‘ All the rest and residue of my personal property remaining after the specific bequests included in this will and also in said memorandum [described in the third clause of the will], I give and bequeath to the oldest living child of my cousin, Frank W. Burnham, and to the Reverend William Grainger of said East Hampton, New York, (or in case he shall not survive me, then to his oldest living child), to be divided equitably among the members of said two families as they may in their uncontrolled discretion decide.’
The master made findings with reference to the testator's situation at the time of the execution of the will and thereafter, as follows: The plaintiff, who was the trustee of the inter vivos and testamentary trusts set up by Antoinette H. Saville, was also the custodian of the testator's own funds. About the date of the execution of the will the testator's own separate property was worth about $51,000 the property over which he had power to appoint under the inter vivos trust was about $54,000, and that under the testamentary trust between $8,000 and $12,000. These properties had greatly depreciated in value at the date of the testator's death.‘ Mr. Saville sometimes spoke of property as his own when in fact the principal was subject only to his power of appointment. He spoke of himself, for example, as worth $150,000 at a time shortly after the establishment of the two trusts of 1918 and with direct reference to these trusts. At that time he was an income beneficiary of the trust of August 1, 1918, but had no right presently to receive principal, while under the trust of August 2, 1918, he had no present income and only a power to appoint principal. Again in 1928 when his mother died Mr. Saville spoke of having ‘ inherited’ one-half of her property when in fact her will gave him only income for life with power to appoint at death.' Just prior to the execution of his will, on February 5, 1930, he wrote to the present plaintiff requesting information as to The plaintiff answered this letter, in part, as follows: The master found in substance that the degree of intimacy of the testator with any of his relations by blood or marriage was not unfriendly but found that ‘ his principal and most intimate relations, especially during the later...
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