Bridgeport City Trust Co. v. Shaw

• Decision Date: 05 July 1932
• Citation: 115 Conn. 269,161 A. 341
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BRIDGEPORT CITY TRUST CO. v. SHAW et al.

161 A. 341

115 Conn. 269

BRIDGEPORT CITY TRUST CO. v. SHAW et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 5, 1932

Case reserved from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Ernest A Inglis, Judge.

Suit by the Bridgeport City Trust Company, administrator of the estate of Samuel C. Trubee, deceased against J. Cuyler Shaw executor, and others, for the construction of a will. The case was reserved by the superior court for advice of the Supreme Court of Errors.

Questions answered.

Paul L Miller, of Bridgeport, for the plaintiff.

Paul C. Calhoun and John C. Thompson, both of Bridgeport; for defendant Sanford and others.

Robert H. Gould, of Bridgeport (Louis K. Gould, of Bridgeport, on the brief), for defendant Kippen.

Edward L. Kelly and Samuel F. Beardsley, both of Bridgeport, for defendant Bridgeport City Trust Co. administrator of various estates et al.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN BANKS, and AVERY, JJ.

HAINES, J.

By the second paragraph of the will of Samuel C. Trubee, who died in Bridgeport December 4, 1900, he gave one-half of his estate to his wife, Mary C. Trubee, " to her and her heirs absolutely and forever," after providing specifically for the disposition of certain personal effects, and the third paragraph of the will read as follows: " I give and bequeath the use, income and improvement of the remaining one-half of my estate to my said wife, Mary C. Trubee for and during her natural life, and upon her decease said one-half is to be distributed according to the laws of distribution of the State of Connecticut."

Mary C. Trubee was named as executrix, and she duly qualified and acted during her lifetime, and upon her death on January 28, 1931, the plaintiff was appointed her successor as administrator d. b. n. c. t. a. On July 31, 1931, the amount of the estate of which his wife had enjoyed the life use, and remaining for distribution, was $56,630.44, as shown by an inventory filed and accepted in the court of probate. The testator left no children or representatives of children, but at his death his heirs at law were a sister, Harriet Trubee Knapp, who survived the testator but predeceased the life tenant: and a brother, David Trubee, who also survived the testator but predeceased the life tenant; a niece, Frances Elizabeth Somers, the daughter of Elizabeth Trubee Hoile, a deceased sister of the testator; Carrie C. Knapp, Harriet T. Garlick, and Emma D. Knapp, nieces, and Rufus Knapp, nephew, children of Caroline Trubee Knapp, a deceased sister of the testator; Frederick Trubee and S. Curtis Trubee, nephews, sons of William Trustee, a deceased brother of the testator; Jessie A. Bishop and Julia A. Gibney, grandnieces, and William A. Trubee, grandnephew, children of a predeceased nephew, William E. Trubee.

The three questions raised by this reservation are all involved in the interpretation of the third paragraph of the will, and are stated of record as follows: " (1) Whether under the paragraph in said Will noted as 'In the Third Place' the distributes should be ascertained as having a vested interest at the date of the death of the testator. (2) Whether, if question one is answered in the affirmative, the widow, Mary C. Trubee, had any vested interest in the remainder interest of said Trust Fund after her life estate terminated, to which her personal representatives would be entitled and which in turn should be distributed by virtue of the terms of her own last Will and Testament. (3) Whether the vesting of the remainder interest in said Trust Fund is postponed until the death of the widow and the distributes should be ascertained to be the heirs at law and next of king of Samuel C. Trubee who were then living." These questions can best be discussed under two heads: (a) Does the estate of the widow share in the remainder estate? and (b) When and in whom did the remainder interest vest?

All parties to the reservation save the executors of the estate of the widow are agreed that her estate takes no interest in the remainder estate, and the executors make no contest in this court and file no briefs in support of the opposite position taken in the pleadings. Nevertheless the question does appear in the reservation, and we give it consideration.

Bearing in mind that " the pole star of testamentary interpretation" is the intent of the testator, one of the first questions to be decided is whether the testator intended to include the estate of his wife when he used the expression, " distributed according to the laws of distribution of the State of Connecticut."

The " laws of distribution of the State of Connecticut" at the time this will was executed, and which we must assume were known and understood by the testator, were continued in General Statutes, sections 630-632. Rev. 1887, and section 623, Rev. 1887, as amended by Public Acts of 1889, c. 41 and Public Acts of 1895, c. 217; those sections later being, respectively, sections 396-398 and section 301. Revision 1902.

In section 391 it was provided that the surviving wife, if there was no will and if there were no children, should take all the estate absolutely to the extent of $2,000 and one half absolutely of the remainder of the estate, and, " where the husband has, by will, devised or bequeathed a portion of his property to his surviving wife *** such provision shall taken to be in lieu of the share here in provided for, unless the contrary shall be expressly stated in the will, or shall clearly appear therein; but in any such case the party shall have *** her election whether to accept the provision of such will or take such statutory share." Section 398 provided that, after the share of the wife was distributed, then, if there were no children or representatives of children and no parent, the estate shall be distributed " equally to the brothers and sisters of the whole blood, and those who legally represent them. ***"

One contention now made is that the present testator having provided for his wife by this will, it must be assumed that she has accepted that provision in lien of any share in the remainder by reason of the foregoing provision in section 391. The unsoundness of this claim lies in the fact that the will makes no specific provision for the wife out of the remainder estate, which is the only portion of the testator's estate subject to these statutory provisions. If the testator has given her a specific portion of this remainder by his will, she would have been put to her election between that and the share which the statute would be give her.

We have not infrequently been called upon to construe testamentary provisions somewhat similar to that in the will before us, such as " among my legal heirs according to the law for the distribution of intestate estate in this State." Tingier v. Woodruff, 84 Conn. 684, 81 A. 967, 968; " to my heirs at law." Wilde v. Bell, 86 Conn. 610, 87 A. 8, 9; Gross v. Hartford-Connecticut Trust Co., 100 Conn. 332, 123 A. 907; " next of kin," Close v. Benham, 97 Conn. 102, 115 A. 626, 20 A.L.R. 351; Union & New Haven Trust Co. v. Ackerman. 114 Conn. 152, 158 A. 224.

An examination of those decisions will disclose the care with which we have considered all the circumstances surrounding the testator, in our endeavor to carry out his real purpose and intent, and that we have consistently refused to recognize as necessarily conclusive the strict literal meaning of the words employed in the will; for it may be said with truth of a will as of a statute, that the letter cannot prevail against a plainly indicated intent. Brown's Appeal, 72 Conn. 148, 44 A. 22, 49 L.R.A. 144.

In Thomas v. Castle, 76 Conn. 447, 56 A. 854, following Rand v. Butler, 48 Conn. 203, we held that, in the absence of language or circumstances indicating a clear intention to the contrary, a life tenant who was also an heir could not be excluded from his share in a remainder interest which was to be distributed according to the statutes of distribution. In the four cases above referred to, however, the language of the will and the circumstances surrounding the testator were such that there appeared a clear intent on the part of the testator that the life tenant should not take a share in the remainder as one of the heirs at law. In the present case the testator was 90 years of age and his wife was 55. Th...