Bullard. v. Redwood Library

• Decision Date: 10 July 1914
• Docket Number: No. 4747.,4747.
• Citation: 37 R.I. 107,91 A. 30
• Parties: BULLARD et al. v. REDWOOD LIBRARY et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

91 A. 30

37 R.I. 107

BULLARD et al.

v. REDWOOD LIBRARY et al.

No. 4747.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 10, 1914.

Case Certified from Superior Court, Newport County.

Proceeding by George E. Bullard and others, executors of the will of Mary E. W. Perry, deceased, against Redwood Library and others, for construction of the will. From a decree of the probate court in favor of defendants, Bullard and others appeal to the superior court, from which the case was certified under Gen. Laws 1909, c. 298, § 10, upon an agreed statement of facts. Papers in the cause, with decision certified thereon, remitted with direction to enter a decree dismissing the appeal and affirming the decree of the probate court.

William MacLeod, of Newport, for appellants Sheffield & Harvey, of Newport, for appellees.

JOHNSON, C. J. This is an appeal from a decree of the probate court of the town of Middletown to the superior court of Newport county, certified to this court upon an agreed statement of facts.

The appellants are the executors of the will of Mary E. W. Perry, a domiciled resident of Middletown in this state, who died December 10, 1910, and, the will having been duly proved, are qualified to act as such by the decree of the probate court of Middletown.

The agreed statement of facts is as follows:

"The parties hereto, having adversary interests in the construction of the will of Mary E. W. Perry in the within cause, concur in stating a special case for the opinion of the Supreme Court upon the following agreed statement of facts:

"(1) That Mary E. W. Perry, late of the town of Middletown, deceased, died on the 10th day of December, A. D. 1910, leaving a last will and testament duly admitted to probate by the pro-bate court of said town of Middletown (a copy of which said will is hereto attached and marked 'Exhibit A').

"(2) That in and by said will testatrix left certain legacies as follows:

Redwood Library, Newport, books, clock, and

$50,000

St. Mary's Church, So. Portsmouth, share in Redwood Library, and

2,000

St. Mary's Church, rector's fund

1,000

Trinity Church, Newport, rector's fund, and sundry articles of furniture

5,000

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me

10,000

Home for Aged Women, Bangor, Me

5,000

Eastern Maine General Hospital, Bangor

4,000

First Congregational Church, Groveland, Mass., seven-tenths of Perry Mansion

property, to be used as a parsonage, and,

3,000

Town of Groveland, land for public park. Mary Bamfield Davies

1,000

Mary Wilkinson Richardson

1,000

Helen Robinson Woodbury.

1,000

Lisa Carroll

1,000

Alice Bullard Ide

1,000

Eleanor May Barker

2,000

Mary Adams Willard

2,000

Edward F. Fitzgerald, gardner

1,100

Marie Bernier

500

George E. Bullard

10,000

Louis Curtis

10,000

Clark Burdick

10,000

August Carlson.

500

Jeremiah Lawton

100

—the pecuniary legacies in all amounting to $121 200.

" (3) That the estate of said Mary E. W. Perry was invested in stocks, bonds, notes, and other property amounting to $2,315,964.48, of which $17,330.32 was within the state of Rhode Island and the balance was within the commonwealth of Massachusetts, but that of said balance, $135,000 was represented by notes secured by mortgages upon Rhode Island property, and $22,000 was represented by bonds of the cities of Providence and Woonsocket in the state of Rhode Island, though said notes and bonds were physically in Massachusetts.

"(4) That in order to get possession of the assets of the estate within the commonwealth of Massachusetts the executors were obliged to take out ancillary letters testamentary in the probate court of Suffolk county, Mass., and in accordance with the requirements of the inheritance tax laws of Massachusetts then in force, to wit, St. 1909, c. 490, pt. IV, paid the following taxes assessed against the following legacies by the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and required to be paid before the said executors could gain control of the assets within that state:

Redwood Library

$2,500

St. Mary's Church, So. Portsmouth

100

Trinity Church, Newport, rector's fund

250

Bowdoin College

500

Home for Aged Women, Bangor

250

Eastern Maine General Hospital

200

Eleanor May Barker

100

Mary Adams Willard.

100

George E. Bullard

500

Clark Burdiek

500

Louis Curtis,

500

Total tax on pecuniary legacies

$5,500

"(5) That the executors under the provisions of chapter 318. § 13, of the General Laws filed in the office of the probate clerk of the said town a statement setting out the names of the legatees and the amounts to be paid to each legatee, and in computing the amounts to be paid to each legatee the executors deducted in each case an amount equal to the inheritance tax paid to the commonwealth of Massachusetts (a copy of which said statement is hereto attached and marked 'Exhibit B').

"(6) That by a decree of said court entered May 19, 1913, said statement was amended by not allowing the deduction of the amount in each case of the Massachusetts inheritance tax, and said executors were ordered to pay said legacies in full as appears by the decree herein, from which decree the executors, the appellants, appealed to the superior court for the reasons stated in their reasons of appeal filed in this cause.

"(7) That the said Mary E. W. Perry was at the time of her death a resident of the town of Middletown and state of Rhode Island.

"Upon the foregoing agreed statement of facts the parties hereto concur in stating the following question in issue:

"Inasmuch as the will of Mary E. W. Perry gave the pecuniary legacies to the legatees as hereinbefore stated without specifically exempting the legatees from any deductions, which of the two following contentions is correct?

"I. The executors contend that the statement as originally filed should be allowed, and that the inheritance tax assessed by the commonwealth of Massachusetts against the legacies given to the respective legatees should be a charge against the legatees, and deducted from their legacies before payment to reimburse the estate for the amount advanced for their taxes.

"II. The appellees contend that the statement allowed by the probate court of Middletown should be confirmed, and that the inheritance taxes paid to Massachusetts are part of the expenses of administration incurred in obtaining the assets of the estate, and that inasmuch as the distribution of the estate should be made by the laws of the state of Rhode Island of which the testatrix was a domiciled resident at the time of her death, the executors have no right to deduct any amounts paid for foreign inheritance taxes from the legacies payable to the respective legatees."

In the construction of this, as in any other will, the primary question is, in view of all the circumstances, one of intent. The general principle of law is, if possible, to ascertain and give effect to that intent. Boardman Pet., 16 R. I. 131, 13 Atl. 94.

The testatrix, at the time of her death, was a resident of this state. As is said in Eidman v. Martinez, 184 U. S. 578, 581, 22 Sup. Ct. 515, 516 (46 L. Ed. 697), in discussing the rights of a foreign state to tax the personal property of nonresidents:

"It is still the law that personal property is sold, transmitted, bequeathed by will, and is descendible by inheritance according to the law of the domicile, and not by that of its situs."

In Cross v. United States Trust Co., 131 N. Y. 330, 30 N. E. 125, 15 L. R. A. 606, 27 Am. St. Rep. 597, the court said:

"It is a general and universal rule that personal property has no locality. It is subject to the law of the owner's domicile, as well in respect to a disposition of it by act inter vivos as to its transmission by last will and testament, and by succession upon the owner dying intestate."

In Fellows v. Miner, 119 Mass. 541, 544, Gray, C. J., says:

"But, the testator's domicile being in this commonwealth, the question of the validity of his disposition of his personal property, though to be executed elsewhere, is to be determined by the law of Massachusetts."

The testatrix is presumed to have made her will in accordance with the existing laws of this state. Missionary Society v. Pell, 14 R. I. 456.

In Kingsbury v. Bazeley, 75 N. H. 13, 70 Atl. 916, 139 Am. St Rep. 664, 20 Ann. Cas. 1355, the court said:

"In a gift of a pecuniary legacy of a certain amount, the apparent intention is to benefit the legatee to the full amount named. If such will is to be administered by the law of a jurisdiction imposing no inheritance tax, or none upon the class to which the legatee belongs, the purpose to transmit the full amount to such legatee would seem clear when the will is read in the light of the law by which it is to be given effect. The conclusion that a less sum was intended, because at the time of the testator's death some portion of his property happened to be within a jurisdiction imposing a tax upon such a transfer, seems strange and illogical."

In Re Hartmann's Estate, 70 N. J. Eq. 664, 667, 62 Atl. 560, 562, the court, in discussing the right both of the state of the domicile and the state where the property is located, says:

"The great weight of authority favors the principle * * * that as to personal property its situs, for the purpose of a succession tax, is the domicile of the decedent, and the right to its imposition is not affected by the statute of a foreign state, which subjects to similar taxation such portion of the personal estate of any nonresident testator as he may take and leave there for safekeeping, or until it should suit his convenience to carry it away."

If it be true that such taxation by a foreign state is immaterial when the law of the state of the domicile also imposes such a tax, it must be equally true when the state of the domicile has no statute imposing such a tax.

In Callahan v. Woodbridge, 171 Mass. 595, 597, 51 N. E. 176, 177, the court says:

"The legal right of the Legislature to make such a provision in regard to the property of a nonresident owner rests upon the fact that...