Howood House, Inc. v. Trustees of Donations and Bequests for Church Purposes, Inc.

• Decision Date: 04 April 1967
• Docket Number: No. 140916,140916
• Citation: 233 A.2d 5,27 Conn.Supp. 176
• Court: Connecticut Superior Court
• Parties: The HOWOOD HOUSE, INC. v. The TRUSTEES OF DONATIONS AND BEQUESTS FOR CHURCH PURPOSES, INC., et al.

Page 5

233 A.2d 5

27 Conn.Supp. 176

The HOWOOD HOUSE, INC. v. The TRUSTEES OF DONATIONS AND BEQUESTS FOR CHURCH PURPOSES INC., et al.

No. 140916.

Superior Court of Connecticut, Hartford County.

April 4, 1967.

Robinson, Robinson & Cole, Hartford, for plaintiff.

Pelgrift, Dodd & Stoughton, Hartford, for named defendant.

Carl D. Eisenman and David B. Beizer, Asst. Attys. Gen., for defendant Harold M. Mulvey.

Shipman & Goodwin, Hartford, for defendant Hartford Hospital.

Howard, Kohn, Sprague & FitzGerald, Hartford, for defendant Connecticut Bank and Trust Co., executor and trustee under will of Emily M. W. Peabody.

Goldfarb & Spellacy, Hartford, for defendant Martin H. Peabody, executor under will of Douglass W. Peabody.

KLAU, Judge.

Emily M. W. Peabody died a resident of Glastonbury, Connecticut, on September 6 1932, at the age of fifty-one or fifty-two years, leaving a will dated August 27, 1932. Under article 1 of the will, she directed that she be buried next to her father's grave in St. James Cemetery in said town of Glastonbury. Personal bequests were made under article 2 of the will to her cousin Alice Welles, to whom she also bequeathed the sum of $3000 (article 4); household effects were bequeathed to the Taylors of West Hartford (article 3); and $1000 to her nephew Hardin Peabody, son of her brother, Douglass W. Peabody of Atlanta, Georgia (article 5). The said Hardin Peabody is also known as Martin H. Peabody, a defendant and executor of the estate of his father. Under article 6, she bequeathed the sum of $1000 to her niece Mary Josephine Smith, the daughter of her said brother of Atlanta, Georgia. Under article 7, the testatrix bequeathed the sum of $5000 to the named defendant in perpetual trust to pay the net income thereof for the benefit and/or support of St. James' Parish, located in the town of Glastonbury, in memory of her mother and grandfather. Under article 8, she bequeathed the sum of $5000 to defendant The Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Alabama for the benefit and/or support of Trinity Church, Mobile, Alabama. Under article 9, she gave and bequeathed the sum of $5000 to the plaintiff, Howood House, Inc., a corporation of the state of Connecticut located in the city of Hartford, in trust, however, to invest and reinvest the same and to expend the net income thereof to defray the expenses, in whole or in part, of any girls and/or women who are patients of any institution maintained by said corporation but who are unable to pay their own expenses, either in whole or in part.

Under article 10, all the rest, residue and remainder of her estate the testatrix bequeathed to The Phoenix State Bank and Trust Company as trustee (the defendant The Connecticut Bank and Trust Company is successor by merger to said Phoenix State Bank and Trust Company), to pay the income thereof to her brother, Douglass W. Peabody, during his life. On the death of her brother she directed that the trust should terminate, and further directed that the trustee divide the trust fund into three equal parts and pay over said parts as follows: One-third to the defendant The Trustees of Donations and Bequests for Church Purposes, to be added to the principal of the trust fund provided for under the terms of article 7, to be managed, controlled and finally disposed of in the same manner and as fully as though it had been originally incorporated in and made a part of said trust fund. One-third to the defendant The Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Alabama, to be added to the principal of the trust fund provided for under the terms of article 8, to be managed, controlled and finally disposed of in the same manner and as fully as though it had been originally incorporated in and made a part of said trust fund. The remaining one-third to the plaintiff Howood House, Inc., to be added to the principal of the trust fund provided for under the terms of article 9, thenceforth to be held, managed, controlled and finally disposed of in the same manner and as fully as though it had been originally incorporated in and made a part of said trust fund.

The life tenant and only heir at law of the testatrix, Douglass W. Peabody, died a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, on December 16, 1955. His son, the defendant Martin H. Peabody (Hardin Peabody) is the duly qualified executor under the will of Douglass W. Peabody. The Phoenix State Bank and Trust Company, the executor under the will of the testatrix, paid to the plaintiff $5000 pursuant to the aforesaid article 9 and the plaintiff has administered the same pursuant to said article. Until the dissolution of the plaintiff on June 27, 1963, following the death of the life tenant, the trustee distributed to the plaintiff one-third of the principal of the trust and plaintiff added the same to the principal of the trust established under article 9. At the present time, the principal of said trust amounts to approximately $40,000.

The plaintiff was incorporated as a charitable corporation without capital stock on November 12, 1930, and was dissolved on June 27, 1963, pursuant to a certificate of dissolution filed with the secretary of the state. Prior to its dissolution, a purpose of the plaintiff was 'to erect and/or maintain a home or building for the purpose of offering girls and women accommodations for convalescence at a nominal cost.' Howood House, Inc., Arts. of Assn. art. 2, 3. Paragraph sixth of article 2 of the articles of association reads as follows: 'Sixth: Upon any dissolution of said corporation, the assets of said corporation shall be transferred to The Hartford Hospital, or its successor, to be held as a permanent fund as a memorial to Edmund G. Howe, William J. Wood and Frances Howe Wood, the income to be used for the general uses and purposes of said hospital. It is the hope of the subscribers that said income will be used by said hospital in a manner to continue as nearly as possible the purposes of this corporation.' Upon its dissolution, the plaintiff transferred to the defendant Hartford Hospital its real estate and certain other property which it owned outright, pursuant to said paragraph sixth. From and after its dissolution, the plaintiff has maintained no institution for girls and/or women patients. From and after its dissolution, the plaintiff has continued to hold the property comprising the trust established pursuant to articles 9 and 10 of the will of Emily M. W. Peabody and has accumulated the income thereon and continues to do so.

Plaintiff seeks a decree (a) determining the construction of said will, and (b) directing to whom and in what proportions the plaintiff is to distribute the principal of said trust, together with the income thereof accumulated to the date of such distribution.

Very little evidence was introduced concerning the life and background of the testatrix, Emily M. W. Peabody. It was stipulated that an affidavit filed by the defendant Martin Peabody, nephew of the testatrix, might be considered by the court. The affidavit indicates that his father (Douglass) was the son of Douglass Carnes Peabody and Mary Jane Welles Peabody; that his grandfather, Douglass Carnes Peabody, was an Episcopal minister and was the first rector at St. James' Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. The grandfather subsequently served Episcopal churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Rockford, Illinois; and the Trinity Church, located in Mobile, Alabama. The father of the defendant Martin Peabody and his aunt, the testatrix, grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and the father attended secondary school and the university there. After his graduation, the father moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly thereafter, the grandfather died and the testatrix and her mother returned to Glastonbury, Connecticut. She continued living there until she died. She continued to attend St. James' Church in that town. While the testatrix and her family lived in Mobile, the family life was an extremely happy one.

The plaintiff was originally organized to operate as a convalescent home for females. The first admission of a patient was on April 27, 1931, to the so-called Woods Home at 675 Asylum Avenue, which had been conveyed to it by Ethel W. Thomas as a memorial to her parents, who had owned and occupied the home. The average daily number of patients was approximately thirteen; total admissions in 1931 were thirty-eight; the number discharged was thirty-five. On January 28, 1932, a Miss Peabody of Glastonbury was admitted. The records indicate that she was discharged on February 2, 1932. The reason for her admission was indicated as fatigue. From the evidence, this appears to be the only connection that the testatrix, assuming she was the Miss Peabody referred to, had with the plaintiff. Her will, executed on August 27, 1932, seems to bear out the probability that she was for a few days in the latter part of January, 1932, a patient of the plaintiff.

The primary reason for the dissolution of the plaintiff was its inability to continue to operate the Howood House with the funds on hand. Being unable to use any of the principal, income proved insufficient to carry out its purposes. During the 1930's the plaintiff operated what was termed a convalescent home confined to females, but the operation of it was of short duration. With the development of Blue Cross, and of other benefits arising out of employment agreements, and the creation of more modern convalescent facilities, the character of the plaintiff's operations changed so that during the 1940's and 1950's the length of stay of patients became much longer, until the plaintiff gradually developed into an old ladies' home, many of the patients being terminal cases. The situation finally developed so as to make it impracticable to continue even along these lines. The trustees voted to dissolve the corporation, and its real estate and other assets not specifically held in trust were turned over to the Hartford...