Guaranty Trust Co. of N.Y. v. New York City Cancer Committee

• Citation: 145 Conn. 542,144 A.2d 535
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 24 June 1958
• Parties: GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK et al., Executors and Trustees (ESTATE of John H. HARRIS) v. NEW YORK CITY CANCER COMMITTEE et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 535

144 A.2d 535

145 Conn. 542

GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK et al., Executors and Trustees (ESTATE of John H. HARRIS) v. NEW YORK CITY CANCER COMMITTEE et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 24, 1958.

Thurston Greene, Litchfield, for plaintiffs.

Ernest McCormick, Hartford, with whom was Lee C. Fielden, Hartford, for defendant Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.

John N. Cole, Stamford, for named defendant.

Jonathan F. Ells, Winsted, for defendant Hoes and pro se, as guardian ad litem for undetermined charities.

Before DALY, C. J., KING, MURPHY and MELLITZ, JJ., and SHEA, Superior Court Judge.

KING, Associate Justice.

This is an action seeking a construction of certain portions of the will and codicil of John H. Harris, late of Salisbury, Connecticut. The questions propounded fall into two main groups. The first group concerns the right of the trustees to invade the principal of the trust corpus to carry out the provisions for the testator's widow. The second group concerns the proration of taxes, especially on the residuary gifts.

Of the first six articles of the will as amended by the codicil, the first three are administrative and only the last three are dispositive. Articles fourth and fifth, respectively, give all tangible personal property and all real property to the testator's widow. Article sixth provides for a number of pecuniary legacies to various friends and servants. The definition in subsection (g) of article sixth of 'net estate available for distribution,' as used in that article, is by its express terms to be employed only in determining the applicability of a provision for the abatement of these legacies in the contingency that the provisions made in the will for the widow should fall below a certain amount. Since the stipulation shows that they far exceed that amount, the definition is inoperative. It is inapplicable to any other article of the will and consequently is of no materiality in the determination of the questions propounded in the stipulation.

Article seventh disposes of the residue of the estate. The dispositions made by this article, as amended by the codicil, in summary are as follows: (a) The net income of 25 per cent to the testator's widow, and at her death the 'then remaining corpus' equally to Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, hereinafter referred to as the hospital, and the New York City Cancer Committee, hereinafter referred to as the cancer committee. (b) Three per cent to be paid to Augustus S. Rose upon his request, to be by him given to such tax exempt charitable institutions as he may determine, and upon his death the remaining corpus, if any, to go to the hospital and the cancer committee. (c) Two per cent outright to such of the children of Edwin B. Katte, brother of the testator's widow, as survive the testator. (d) One per cent outright to such of the children of the testator's brother William as survive the testator. (e) One per cent outright to such of the children of another brother, David, as survive the testator. (f) The remaining portion (68 per cent) outright to the testator's widow.

The proper interpretation of the language of the eighth article ¹ determines the answers to the first group of questions and of the thirteenth article ² the answers to the second group of questions. The tenth, eleventh, twelfth and fourteenth articles are administrative rather than dispositive and endow the executors and trustees with broad powers. They, as well as article ninth, are not material to the determination of the issues before us.

The stipulation discloses that the estate was a large one and was so invested as to share in the general inflationary trend of the first seven years of the current decade. Thus the market value of the gross estate at the date of the execution of the will in 1950 was about $3,800,000; this had increased to approximately $6,100,000 by 1952, when the codicil was executed, and had further increased by the time of the testator's death in 1954, so that its estimated value, after taxes and administration expenses, would be over $8,000,000. Of this, the interest in the residue passing to the widow outright under subdivision (f) of article seventh would be close to $4,000,000 while the corpus of the 25 per cent trust established under subdivision (a), of which she is a life beneficiary, would amount to over $1,327,000. While these figures are inexact, it is obvious that the widow not only is given a very large sum of money outright but also the income from a trust corpus which, although smaller, is still very large. The stipulation describes the standard of living of the testator in considerable detail and indicates that his ordinary living expenses amounted to about $65,000 a year.

The will manifests much concern for the welfare of the testator's widow and makes bountiful provision for her. Under these circumstances, we think it clear that the invasion of the corpus provided for in article eighth can be to the extent necessary to provide not only for her general welfare but also for her maintenance in the manner to which she was accustomed at the time of the testator's death, and that the trustees are to follow, from time to time, whichever provision proves to be the more liberal. On the other hand, in considering whether any invasion of principal at all is warranted, we see nothing to obviate the operation of the general rule requiring that other resources of the beneficiary, both principal and income, must be substantially exhausted before any invasion of the corpus is authorized. Hull v. Culver, 34 Conn. 403, 405; Hull v. Holloway, 58 Conn. 210, 216, 20 A. 445; Bridgeport-City Trust Co. v. Beach, 119 Conn. 131, 137, 174 A. 308; Stempel v. Middletown Trust Co., 127 Conn. 206, 220, 15 A.2d 305, 157 A.L.R. 657; City of Bridgeport v. Reilly, 133 Conn. 31, 37, 47 A.2d 865; see Greenwich Trust Co. v. Converse, 100 Conn. 15, 19, 122 A. 916.

The next set of questions has to do with the proration of state and federal taxes in the light of the provision in articl...