Crocker v. Shaw
| Decision Date | 11 September 1899 |
| Citation | 174 Mass. 266,54 N.E. 549 |
| Parties | CROCKER v. SHAW, State Treasurer. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Frank
Brewster, for appellant.
Arthur W. De Goosh, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
This was a petition for instructions to the probate court by the appellant as trustee under two indentures dated in 1865 and 1885, respectively, and executed by Frances W. Ladd and her husband, Alfred Ladd, by which certain property was conveyed by the said Frances to the petitioner in trust to pay over the net income to her during her life, and after her death subject to a provision in favor of her daughter, which has become inoperative by reason of the daughter's death before that of the mother, to convey and transfer the principal to such persons as she should appoint by her last will. Frances W. Ladd died in 1895, leaving a will which has been duly proved in Suffolk county. By her will she directed that a large portion of the trust property should be paid over and transferred to such persons that it is liable to a collateral inheritance tax, if St.1891, c. 425, and the acts in amendment thereto, are applicable. It is agreed that the said Frances was domiciled in Boston at the time of her death, and when the trust indentures were executed, and that at each of those dates the trust estate was within the jurisdiction of this commonwealth. The probate court ruled that the property was subject to the payment of the tax. The trustee appealed, and the case was heard on agreed facts by a justice of this court, who affirmed the decree of the probate court, and the trustee thereupon appealed to the full court.
The questions are whether the property passed "by deed grant, sale or gift made or intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the death of the grantor," whether the statute is constitutional as applied to cases like this, and whether the statute applies to cases where the deed was made before it went into effect, although the property vested after that event.
It seems to us clear that the property passed by a deed intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the death of the grantor. Mrs. Ladd's will is to be referred, as was held in Emmons v. Shaw, 171 Mass. 410, 50 N.E. 1033 to the instruments creating the power under which it was executed, and is to be regarded as a disposition made by the donor of the power. It makes no difference that the donor of the power and the person executing it are one and the same. If the provisions contained in the will of Mrs. Ladd had been incorporated into the trust indentures, there can be no doubt that the property in reference to which this controversy has arisen would have passed under a deed intended to take effect in possession and enjoyment, quoad that property, on the death of the grantor. The grantor would have taken a life estate, and the various gifts would have taken effect in possession and...
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