Fox v. Schaeffer.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1944
• Citation: 131 Conn. 439,41 A.2d 46
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: FOX et al. v. SCHAEFFER.

131 Conn. 439

41 A.2d 46

FOX et al.

v.SCHAEFFER.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 21, 1944.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Simpson, Judge.

Action by Dorothy E. J. Fox and others against Viola M. Schaeffer, as trustee and individually for an accounting as trustee and for other relief, brought to the superior court. A temporary injunction enjoining the defendant from transferring certain stock was issued and the issues were tried to the court. Judgment for the plaintiffs, and appeal by the defendant.

Error and new trial ordered.

Frederick C. Hesselmeyer, of New Haven, for appellant (defendant).

Daniel D. Morgan, of New Haven, for appellees (plaintiffs).

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

In this action, brought to enforce certain trusts, the trial court rendered judgment that each of the four plaintiffs should recover of the named defendant individually and as trustee damages in a certain amount, and she has appealed. The plaintiffs are the grandchildren of Fred E. Jenks, children of his son Leslie. The defendant is a daughter of Fred E. Jenks. The plaintiffs' contention, as stated in the complaint, was that during his lifetime he established for each of them a savings bank account; that, after his death in 1929, these accounts stood in the name of the defendant as trustee under an oral trust; that by the terms of this trust each of them became entitled to the money on reaching the age of twenty-one; and that the defendant withdrew the money and invested it in certain shares of corporate stock which were taken and still stand in her individual name. They sought in the complaint the removal of the defendant as trustee and the appointment of a new trustee, that the funds be paid to them and that the defendant be enjoined from transferring the stock. The defendant admits that she became trustee of the savings bank accounts and that she withdrew the money and invested it, with other money belonging to herself and her husband, in corporate stocks which were taken and still remain in her individual name. Her principal contentions are that, under the terms of the trust as imposed upon her by her father, the plaintiffs are not now entitled to receive the funds, and that the court erred in rendering judgment for money damages and in fixing the amount of that judgment.

The defendant filed a draft-finding containing almost two hundred paragraphs made up for the most part of statements arranged in the order in which they appear in the transcript of testimony. The result is a rather disorderly series of brief statements which include many that are irrelevant to any issue of law in the case, constitute unnecessary detail or are merely evidential. Probably because of this the trial court made a very brief finding which does not present an adequate background for an understanding of the case. Plaintiffs, in their brief, state, however, that they are willing to have some sixty paragraphs of the draft-finding added to the finding, and by piecing together the statements in the finding and in these paragraphs a sufficient basis for considering the claims of error can be obtained.

The finding contains, among the subordinate facts, no statement of the instructions Fred E. Jenks gave, in accordance with which the defendant was to hold the accounts and dispose of income and principal. The first so-called conclusion of the court is that, in accordance with the terms of the trust, the funds were to be paid to the plaintiffs when they reached ‘an understanding age.’ While stated among the conclusions, this amounts to the finding of a primary fact, that the terms of the trust specified that the plaintiffs were entitled to receive the money when they arrived at that age. As such the statement is open to attack upon the basis of the evidence before the court. AEtna Ins. Co. v. Blumenthal, 129 Conn. 545, 550, 29 A.2d 751. The defendant contends that this is not a correct statement of the terms of the trust. The situation is rather unusual in that the defendant was the only person who testified as to the instructions given to her by her father with reference to her duties as trustee, and her evidence was largely educed by questions as to testimony she had given in the trial of another action where the existence and amount of these trusts were in issue. Her statements of the terms of the trust were far from clear and, as given at different times, not entirely harmonious; and it is notable that in the final summing up of them by plaintiffs' counsel, to which she assented, there was no provision as to the ultimate distribution of the fund should she not, in the exercise of her judgment, have used it as an emergency fund for the plaintiffs, although she did state that there was no ‘trust of obligation,’ that is, one which made it obligatory upon her to use the fund for or deliver it to them. It was peculiarly necessary in these circumstances for the court to determine how far it would believe her testimony. Leitzes v. F. L. Caulkins Auto Co., 123 Conn. 459, 461, 196 A. 145. While the testimony which supports the finding is scant and far from clear, we cannot hold that it is not sufficient.

The next conclusion of the court was that each of the plaintiffs had reached an understanding age on or prior to December 17, 1930. Previous to December 23, 1927, the savings bank accounts had stood in the names of the children respectively, with Fred E. Jenks as trustee. On or about that date, the name of the defendant was added, so that they stood thereafter in the names of the children with Fred E. Jenks or the defendant as trustee. It was at this time, according to the defendant, the only witness to the matter, that Fred E. Jenks gave her instructions as to the terms of the trust. The plaintiffs had then respectively reached the following ages: a little over twenty-four, about eighteen, a little less than sixteen and a little less than fourteen. On three days in December, 1930, the last of which was December 17, the plaintiff purchased the shares of corporate stock in which the funds from these accounts were invested. The trial court concluded that, at least by this last day, they had reached an understanding age. On that day the children were respectively about twenty-seven, twenty-one, nineteen and seventeen years of age.

When, on or about December 23, 1927, Fred E. Jenks instructed the defendant that the plaintiffs were not to receive the money until they had reached an understanding age, he could not have meant by that phrase the age of twenty-one years, which from time immemorial the law has regarded as the age at which persons attain a sufficient understanding to be fully answerable for their acts, because at that time one of the plaintiffs was well over that age. ‘To understand’ means to have full and clear knowledge of, to have thorough comprehension of, to comprehend. Chaney v. Baker, 304 Ill. 362, 370, 136 N.E. 804. In its ordinary use it almost necessarily implies a subject matter to be comprehended, and ‘understanding’ when used in such a connotation as the one before us usually has only a relative meaning ‘The word ‘understand,’ so much used by lawyers and jurists in connection with the execution of deeds, wills, and such instruments, includes the realization of the practical effects and consequences in every direction of the proposed act, be it deed or will.' Pitney, V. C., in White v. White, 60 N.J.Eq. 104, 115, 45 A. 767, 771; see also Miller v. Folsom, 49 Okl. 74, 81, 149 P. 1185. We say that a testator, in order to be competent to make a will, must have ‘mind and memory sound enough to enable him to know and understand the business upon which he is engaged’; Atchison v. Lewis, 131 Conn. 218, 219, 38 A.2d 673, 674; and by that we mean that he must comprehend ‘the nature and condition of his property, who are or should be the natural objects of his bounty, and his relations to them, the manner in which he wishes to distribute his estate among or withhold it from them, and the scope and bearing of the will he is making.’ Kimberly's Appeal, 68 Conn. 428, 439, 36 A. 847, 851, 37 L.R.A. 261, 57 Am.St.Rep. 101. Indeed, unless the expression ‘of an understanding age’ can be related to some definite object or purpose in the mind of Fred E. Jenks, there would be serious question whether the trust is one which would be sufficiently definite and certain to be given effect. Union & New Haven Trust Co. v. Koletsky, 117 Conn. 334, 338, 167 A. 803; Ommanney v. Butcher, 1 Turn. & Russ. 260, 273, 37 Eng.Rep.R. 1098; Brubaker v. Lauver, 322 Pa. 461, 463, 185 A. 848; Lefrooth v. Prentice, 202 Cal. 215, 227, 259 P. 947; 3 Pomeroy, Eq.Jur., 4th Ed., § 1009. A proper determination of the meaning of the words requires a careful scrutiny of the surrounding circumstances to ascertain whether Fred E. Jenks had in mind some matters to which these words related; for example, a proper use of the money, or the relationship between the plaintiffs' parents, between whom, the...