Handley v. Palmer

• Citation: 91 F. 948
• Decision Date: 12 January 1899
• Docket Number: 1-1896.
• Parties: HANDLEY et al. v. PALMER et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

91 F. 948

HANDLEY et al. v. PALMER et al.

No. 1-1896.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.

January 12, 1899

Jessup & Jessup and Geo. H. Starr, for complainants.

H. W Palmer and R. M. Ward, for defendants.

ACHESON Circuit Judge.

John Handley, late a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania, and a resident of the city of Scranton, in that state, died at that city on February 15, 1895, without leaving to survive him a wife or any descendants, or any relatives nearer than first cousins. He left a large estate, both personal and real. A great part of his real estate was situated in the city of Scranton, and elsewhere in the state of Pennsylvania. A portion, consisting of about 15,000 acres of timber and coal land, was situated in the county of McDowell, in the state of West Virginia; and another portion, consisting of about 1,200 acres of land, was situated in Frederick county, in the state of Virginia. He left a will dated December 29, 1890, with a codicil attached thereto dated July 31, 1893, which were duly probated since his death. By his will he disposed of his entire estate. He ordered and directed his executors to sell and convey all his real estate at the end of 20 years. He made certain specific bequests, and disposed of the entire residue of his estate in manner following:

'Item. All the rest and residue of my estate I give, devise, and bequeath to the city of Winchester, Virginia, to be accumulated by said city for the period of twenty years the income arising from said residue estate to be expended and laid out in said city by the erection of school houses for the education of the poor.'

The plaintiffs in this bill are first cousins of John Handley. They sue as heirs at law of the decedent and next of kin to him. The defendants are the executors of and trustees under the will of John Handley. The specific bequests under the will are not here drawn in question, but the plaintiffs claim that John Handley died intestate as to all the rest of his estate, and they seek a decree adjudging that the residuary clause of his will above quoted is invalid, and wholly void. The plaintiffs contend that the residuary clause is invalid, because the city of Winchester, a municipal corporation of the state of Virginia, has not the legal capacity to take the estate intended to be given thereby, or to take and administer the same upon the trust therein set forth, and because the beneficiaries and the objects and purposes of the trust are uncertain, and because the subject-matter of the residuary bequest is also uncertain.

It is clear that, as respects all the testator's personal estate and his real estate situated in the state of Pennsylvania, the validity of the residuary clause is to be determined by the law of Pennsylvania; the testator's domicile having been there at the date of his will and at the time of his death. Desesbats v. Berquier, 1 Bin. 336; Freeman's Appeal, 68 Pa.St. 151; Magill v. Brown, 16 Fed.Cas. 408; Brightly, N.P. 346; Jones v. Habersham, 107 U.S. 174, 179, 2 Sup.Ct. 336. In Magill v. Brown, supra,-- a case relating to bequests to charitable uses under the will of Sarah Zane,-- Mr. Justice Baldwin, sitting at circuit in this state, held that, the domicile of the testatrix being here, the law of this state governed her disposition of her personal property as well as of her real estate situated here; and (curiously enough) sustained a bequest 'to the citizens of Winchester,' Va., to purchase a fire engine and hose, and a bequest 'to the select members belonging to the Monthly Meeting of Women Friends held at Hopewell, Frederick county, Virginia, ' the interest to be applied 'towards the relief of the poor belonging thereto. ' In Jones v. Habersham, supra, which involved charitable devises and bequests, the supreme court of the United States said that the validity of the devises, 'as against the heirs at law, depends upon the law of the state in which the lands lie, and the validity of the bequests, as against the next of kin, upon the law of the state in which the testratrix had her domicile. ' It is to observed that under the will of John Handley no real estate anywhere is devised to the city of Winchester. By the express direction and order of the testator contained in his will his entire real estate, wherever lying, is to be sold by his executors. This direction, by the settled law of Pennsylvania, worked a conversion of the testator's real estate, wherever situated, into personalty, as of the date of his death. Dundas' Appeal, 64 PaSt. 325; Roland v. Miller, 100 Pa.St. 47; Miller v. Com., 111 Pa.St. 321, 2 A. 492; Williamson's Estate, 153 Pa.St. 508, 26 A. 246. The plaintiffs' counsel, as I understand them, concede that the power of sale given to the executors is mandatory, and worked an equitable conversion of the testator's real estate everywhere, if the residuary clause is valid. In their brief they say:

'The property which is subject to the residuary clause or gift (item 28 of will) is to be regarded as personal property, in order to determine the validity of the residuary bequest. * * * If the bequest be held valid, the fund is to be decreed personal property, and passes to the city of Winchester as such. If invalid or void, then, the purpose of the conversion having failed, the conversion of the real estate does not take effect, and the real estate retains its original character for the benefit of the heirs.'

The plaintiffs' counsel further contend that 'the question of the validity of the residuary legacy is to be determined mainly by the laws of Virginia.'

The further investigation of the case involves, in the first place, an inquiry into the law of the state of Pennsylvania as it bears upon the question of the validity of the residuary clause of the will of John Handley. Now, it is the settled law of Pennsylvania, as it is generally the law elsewhere (2 Dill.Mun.Corp. (2d Ed.) § 437), that a municipal corporation is capable of taking property, and acting as a trustee for purposes of a public nature germane to the objects of the corporation. City of Philadelphia v. Fox, 64 Pa.St. 169. Thus, in Mayor, etc., v. Elliott, 3 Rawle, 170, a bequest to the city of Philadelphia in trust to purchase a lot of ground, and erect thereon a hospital for the relief of the indigent blind and lame, and to manage and regulate the institution, was sustained; as was a bequest to a city to expend the income in planting shade trees, in Cresson's Appeal, 30 Pa.St. 437. The capacity of a municipal corporation to administer a trust for educational purposes under a devise was sustained by the supreme court of the United States in the leading case of Vidal v. Girard's Ex'rs, 2 How. 127. Judged by the law of Pennsylvania, then, the objection to the competency of the city of Winchester to take the bequest or execute the trust under the residuary clause of this will is without force. If, however, for any reason, the city of Winchester were incompetent to execute the trust, the law of the testator's domicile would not suffer his charitable intentions to be thereby defeated, but would supply a trustee. Both by the common law and the statute law of Pennsylvania a charitable gift is not to fail because given to a person or corporation incapable of taking it and administering the trust, but a competent trustee for the purpose will be appointed by the court. Frazier v. Church, 147 Pa.St. 256, 23 A. 442; Act April 26, 1855 (P.L. p. 331); Purd. Dig. p. 298.

Under the adjudications in Pennsylvania, is the objection based on the alleged uncertainty of the beneficiaries and of the purposes and objects of this residuary bequest well founded? I think not. Charitable gifts, such as this residuary bequest to the city of Winchester, have always been highly favored here, although the statute of 43 Eliz.c. 4, concerning charitable uses, was never adopted by the colony or state of Pennsylvania. In Witman v. Lex, 17 Serg.& R. 88, 93 the supreme court of the state, speaking by Gibson, C.J., with reference to charitable bequests, declared: 'For the present it is sufficient to say that it is immaterial whether the person to take be in esse or not, or whether the legatee were, at the time of the bequest, a corporation capable of taking or not, or how uncertain the objects may be, provided there be a discretionary power vested anywhere over the application of the testator's bounty to those objects; or whether their corporate designation has been mistaken. If the intention sufficiently appears on the bequest, it would be held valid. ' Accordingly, the court there sustained a bequest to a church to be laid out in bread, annually for 10 years, for the poor of the congregation, and also a bequest of money to trustees, the interest to be applied to the education of young students in the ministry of the congregation, under the direction of the vestry. In Pickering v. Shotwell, 10 Pa.St. 23, a devise of real and personal estate to the 'Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia for the Northern District' (being an unincorporated religious association), to be applied as a fund for the distribution of good books among poor people in the back part of Pennsylvania, or to the support of an institution of free school in or near Philadelphia, was established against the heirs and representatives of the testator on a bill by members of the meeting. In Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society's Appeal, 30 Pa.St. 425, 435, this general rule was laid down: 'In the case of a will making a charitable bequest, it is immaterial how vague, indefinite, and uncertain the objects of the testator's bounty may be, provided there is a discretionary power vested in some one over its application...