Estate of Connolly

• Decision Date: 29 April 1975
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: In re ESTATE of Arthur J. CONNOLLY, Deceased. Edgar C. STEEVES, Executor and Respondent, v. Betty STILES and Barbara Simmons, Claimants and Appellants, World's Agnostic Groups and State of California, Contestants and Respondents. Civ. 43710.

Page 325

121 Cal.Rptr. 325

48 Cal.App.3d 129

In re ESTATE of Arthur J. CONNOLLY, Deceased.

Edgar C. STEEVES, Executor and Respondent, v. Betty STILES and Barbara Simmons, Claimants and Appellants, World's Agnostic Groups and State of California, Contestants and Respondents.

Civ. 43710.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

April 29, 1975.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing May 16, 1975.

Hearing Denied July 23, 1975.

Victor S. Amstadter and Steven Edmondson, Santa Monica, for appellants.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., and Geoffrey S. Cantrell, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent State of California.

Hodges, Emmons & Walther and Henry W. Walther, Santa Monica, for respondents World's Agnostic Groups.

COBEY, Associate Justice.

Claimants, Betty Stiles and Barbara Simmons, nieces and sole heirs-at-law of Arthur, J. Connolly, deceased, appeal from an order, upon a petition for instructions filed by the executor of the last will of Connolly, determining Ethical Culture Society of Los Angeles to be the successor charitable trustee of the residue of the estate of Connolly. ¹ The appeal lies. (Prob.Code, § 1240.)

This appeal presents the fundamental question of what was Connolly's intent in leaving his entire estate of cash and securities by will specifically to World's Agnostics Groups (WAG), a non-profit California corporation. ² (See Prob.Code, § 101.) Claimants assert that because of the specific designation of the legatee and because no technical words of trust were used, the testator intended only a gift to WAG and nothing more and WAG being no longer a viable corporation, the gift to it failed and claimants are entitled to receive the residue of the testator's estate by intestate succession pursuant to Probate Code section 225. ³ The Attorney General, as the supervisor of charitable trusts in this state, rejoins that the legacy to WAG constituted a charitable trust and upon the failure of the original trustee, WAG, to survive, the court properly appointed a successor charitable trustee pursuant to the Cy pres doctrine.

Thus, the basic disagreement between claimants and the Attorney General is over the nature of Arthur Connolly's testamentary gift. To decide this question, we must examine the nature of the donee. WAG was a corporation formed about a year before the testator's death. The testator, a single man without children, was one of its three incorporators and one of its three initial directors. According to its Articles of Incorporation its specific and primary purpose was 'to further the cause of agnosticism throughout the world.'

Claimants contend that WAG was not a charitable corporation because this purpose was not a charitable purpose. ⁴ True, this purpose cannot be said to be a religious one (see Webster's New Internat.Dict. (3d ed. 1966) p. 1918), but we regard it as an educational one. Agnosticism is the intellectual viewpoint of an agnostic--one who neither affirms nor denies the existence of a Supreme Being or ultimate cause because he regards the determination of that Being's existence as unknowable. (Id. 42.) Stated otherwise, agnosticism teaches that one aspect of the human condition is the inability of human beings to know whether or not God exists.

A corporation whose purpose is educational is a charitable corporation. (Lynch v. Spilman, 67 Cal.2d 251, 261, 62 Cal.Rptr. 12, 431 P.2d 636.) The dissemination of a rational, though perhaps unpopular, belief or doctrine constitutes an educational purpose. ⁵ (Rest.2d Trusts (1959) §§ 370, com. g, 374, com. 1; 4 Scott (3d ed. 1967) Trusts, § 370.4, p. 2875; Bogert Trusts & Trustees (1964) § 375, pp. 127--128.) In California and apparently elsewhere a gift to a charitable corporation is regarded as being in trust for the accomplishment of its charitable purpose or purposes and no technical words of trust need be used to accomplish this result. No further manifestation of general charitable intent is necessary. (Civ.Code, § 2221; In re L.A. County Pioneer Society, 40 Cal.2d 852, 860, 257 P.2d 1; Estate of MacPherson, 14 Cal.App.3d 450, 457, 92 Cal.Rptr. 574; Rest.2d Trusts, Supra, § 397, com. f; 4 Scott, Trusts, Supra, § 351, pp. 2797--2798.)

To us the intent of the testator in this case seems clear. He gave his estate by will to the corporation he helped create approximately a year before his death so that he might thereby assist it in the accomplishment of its specific and primary purpose--'to further the cause of agnosticism throughout the world.' This determination of his intent accords not only with the policy of the law in this state to favor attempted charitable gifts (Estate of Tarrant, 38 Cal.2d 42, 46, 237 P.2d 505), but it also is consistent with our policy to construe a will in such a way as to avoid intestacy if that may be reasonably done. (See Prob.Code, § 102; Estate of Moore, 190 Cal.App.2d 833, 839, 12 Cal.Rptr. 436.)

The order determining Ethical Culture Society of Los Angeles to be the successor charitable trustee to the residue of the estate of Arthur J. Connolly is affirmed.

ALLPORT, Acting P.J., and POTTER, J., concur.

1 Claimants have also appealed from the dispositions made of certain prior matters, but they appear to have abandoned these objections in favor of their challenge of the disposition made of the testator's residuary estate.

On petition for rehearing claimants contend for the first time that the trial court was without subject matter jurisdiction in this case because their claim came before that court on the executor's petition for instructions rather than upon a petition by him to determine heirship. (See Prob.Code, §§ 588, 1080 et seq.; Estate of Hoffman, 265 Cal.App.2d 135, 139--141, 71 Cal.Rptr. 230.) We disagree. True, their claim came before the trial court (after the trial court apparently had vacated its decree of distribution) on an earlier filed petition of the executor for instructions. The filing of this petition was occasioned by the apparent demise of World's Agnostics Groups, the residuary legatee, and related circumstances. The proceedings then had upon it included an express waiver by claimants,...