Farnam v. Farnam

• Decision Date: 12 July 1910
• Citation: 77 A. 70,83 Conn. 369
• Parties: FARNAM et al. v. FARNAM et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

77 A. 70

83 Conn. 369

FARNAM et al.

v. FARNAM et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 12, 1910.

Case Reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; William L. Bennett, Judge.

Action by William W. Farnam and another, executors and trustees of Henry Farnam, deceased, against Henry Farnam and others for the construction of a will. Cause reserved for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors. Judgment advised.

The contents of the will and the facts pertinent to its construction as they had occurred at the time of the decision of Farnam v. Farnam, 53 Conn. 261, 2 Atl. 325, 5 Atl. 682, which concerned the same instrument, are found fully stated in connection with the report of that case. The following events have occurred since that time, and the following situations arisen. The testator's son, George B. Farnam, died testate December 22, 1886, leaving a widow and seven children. This widow died April 30, 1907. All of his seven children were living at the date of the execution of their grandfather's will, and are now living and unmarried. The widow of the testator died March 6, 1904, having been paid the full amount of the annuity provided for her in the will. The testator's son, Charles H. Farnam, died September 24, 1909. His wife had previously died. His only son, Charles H. Farnam, Jr., born in 1873, died May 8, 1909, a few months before his father, leaving a widow, to whom he was married June 13, 1899. No child was ever born to him. The only other child of Charles, Sr., a daughter, was born in 1871. In 1891 she married. She and her husband are now living. There is no child of hers living. The testator's son, William W. Farnam, and his wife are now living. He has had no children. Sarah Sheffield Farnam Whitney, the fourth child of the testator, her husband, and six children of theirs are now living. Three of these children are married, and two of them have living children, of whom the oldest was born in December, 1899. The husbands of these three children are all living. Sarah Tracy, the only remaining child of Mrs. Whitney, married, and in 1901 died intestate leaving a child. The husband and child now survive. All of said children of Mrs. Whitney were born before the execution of the testator's will, except two. The testator's remaining child, Henry W., was married in 1890. He, his wife, and three children now survive. Two other children, who died in infancy, were born to him. All of the living persons above referred to are parties to the action, as are also the sole surviving executor of the will of George B. Farnam, deceased, the executrix of the will of Charles H. Farnam, Sr., deceased, the executor in Connecticut of the will of Charles H. Farnam, Jr., deceased, and the administrator of the estate of Sarah Tracy Sanford. nee Whitney, deceased. The fuller details and additional facts set out in the finding need not be stated.

Erroll M. Augur, for plaintiffs.

John W. Bristol and Samuel H. Fisher, for Anne Farnam Woodward, personally and as executrix, and Frank L. Woodward. Sanford Stoddard and Edward H. Blanc of New York, for the executors of the will of Charles Henry Farnam, Jr., deceased, and for Ruth Stanley Farnam.

Henry C. White, for all the living grandchildren, except Mrs. Woodward.

George D. Watrous, for Eli Whitney, administrator, et al.

Henry Stoddard, for William W. Farnam et al., living children of the testator.

PRENTICE, J. (after stating the facts as above). This will was before this court upon a reservation for advice in Farnam v. Farnam, 53 Conn. 261, 2 Atl. 325, 5 Atl. 682. At that time the intent of the testator was defined, the construction to be given to his language established, and the legal operation of that language for the most part determined. The superior court subsequently rendered its judgment wherein the construction of the will was settled and adjudged in conformity with the advice given, and the trustees were ordered to proceed with the execution of the trust pursuant to the terms of the judgment. The years which have since passed have been productive of situations in the family history which prompt the trustees to seek from the superior court for their guidance certain additional advice pertinent to existing conditions, and to others which may reasonably be anticipated in the future. The advice thus asked relates in part to the interpretation to be given to an expression contained in the former opinion and judgment in part looks to the express adjudication of questions which, while more or less affected by the former conclusions and the governing principles laid down, were not distinctly passed upon, and in part concerns the operative effect of a provision in the will which the court found no occasion to adjudicate.

To the extent that this judgment established the construction of the will, or declared its operative effect in matters concerning which there were or are existing rights and interests, it was a judicial declaration which we ought not to disturb, whatever our conclusions might be upon the questions decided, were they now presented for the first time. The parties interested have for these many years, doubtless, regulated their lives and their affairs in conformity to it, and all those and their privies whose rights as between each other were thereby directly fixed and determined acquired property rights which became vested in them by the court's action. Gilman v. Tucker, 128 N. Y. 190, 203, 204, 28 N. E. 1040, 13 L. R. A. 304, 26 Am. St. Rep. 464; Germania Savings Bank v. Suspension Bridge, 159 N. Y. 362, 368, 54 N. E. 33; Humphrey v. Gerard, 77 Atl. 65; Smith v. Lewis, 26 Conn. 110, 116; Nichols v. Bridgeport, 27 Conn. 459, 462.

We are thus enabled to begin our inquiries with certain premises fixed. In so far as the questions presented to us are but repetitions in another form of those heretofore adjudicated, we have only to reassert what was then said. In so far as our advice is asked for the purpose of having a formal declaration concerning conditions not directly passed upon before, but which involve as factors in them conclusions embodied in the former judgment, or underlying it. it is our manifest duty to accept the former conclusions as fixing the law of the instrument in so far as they go, and thus pursue the only course which can make the operation of the will consistent throughout, and deal with the rights and interests of all parties upon an equal basis. In so far as we are called upon to interpret the language of the court used in the former opinion and judgment, and determine its application, we have but to declare its intended meaning, if that meaning is apparent.

The questions propounded relate to three subject-matters, to wit: (1) The $5,000 annuities given in the second clause of the fourth article, (2) the gifts of net annual income provided for in the fourth clause of the same article, and (3) the disposition of the remainder of the trust fund made in the fifth article.

The judgment, rendered in conformity to the advice of this court, declared that the above-described annuities were payable after the death of a child to the family of such child during the continuance of the trust. The superior court is now asked to define the term "family" as thus used, to announce who are to be regarded as embraced within its description, and to determine the basis upon which those within the description are to share. The word "family" is one of flexible and uncertain meaning, and will be construed differently according as the circumstances may seem to require, in order that the apparent meaning in which it is used in any given case may be carried into effect. Lepard v. Clapp, 80 Conn. 30, 34, 66 Atl. 780.

The opinion of the court leaves no room for reasonable doubt as to what it meant by the use of the term. It was declared that what the testator studiously sought to accomplish throughout the provisions of his will was exact equality and impartiality as between the different members and branches of his stock, that the annuities were manifestly given for purposes of maintenance, that it could not be presumed that the testator would have cut off the family of a child from participation after a child's death, and that, as he had not done so expressly, the court was not disposed to do so by implication. From these premises it was argued that his intent in providing these annual payments must have been one which would accomplish the ends sought, and that the only construction which would do so was one which continued the benefit of each of them to the heirs of a child deceased as long as the trust should continue. This conclusion was amplified and made more distinct by the final statement that in making a declaration of the court's conclusion in this regard its purpose was to follow, as nearly as might be, the statute of distributions as the guiding principle of succession.

The court thus clearly manifested its purpose and the result which it meant to effectuate. It plainly indicated its conclusion that the right to the enjoyment of the several annuity payments, as maintenance provisions, was not vested in the several children of the testator as one for the life of the trust, that the death of any one of such children would not terminate the payments set apart for his or her enjoyment primarily, that on the contrary such payments would be continued to others surviving him or her as substitutes for the deceased, that this process of substitution of living persons for the dead child, as beneficiaries of the payment which the child, if living, would receive was to go on until the termination of the trust, that the persons who were to be regarded as these substitutes were the heirs of the deceased child, using that term in the sense of the distributees of his estate in intestacy, and that the basis of division among these persons was that fixed by the statute of distributions. It is evident from the fact that these annuities were declared...