Hoyt v. Orcutt
| Decision Date | 21 February 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. A-148.,A-148. |
| Citation | 64 A.2d 212 |
| Parties | HOYT et al. v. ORCUTT et al. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from former Court of Chancery.
Suit by Henry H. Hoyt and others, executors and trustees under the will of Brent Good, deceased, against Brent Good Orcutt and others and Henry H. Hoyt, Jr., and others for construction of the will of Brent Good, deceased. From the decree, 59 A.2d 17, Henry H. Hoyt, Jr., and others appeal.
Reversed and remanded with directions.
Ralph E. Lum, of Newark (Lum, Fairlie & Foster and Albert R. Jube, all of Newark, on the brief), for appellants.
Charles A. Foehl, Jr. and Young, Shanley, Foehl & Fisher, all of Newark, for appellees.
This is an appeal by the defendants Henry H. Hoyt, Jr., Charles O. Hoyt and Suzanne K. Hoyt from a decree of the former Court of Chancery on a bill for the construction of the will of Brent Good, deceased.
The testator died in 1915, leaving as his survivors his second wife, Frances C. Good, a son, Harold F. Good, a daughter, Kate Good Orcutt, and two grandchildren, Brent Good Orcutt and Anna Clark Orcutt (now Anna Orcutt Hoyt), the children of Kate Orcutt. Both of the grandchildren have since married and one, Anna Orcutt Hoyt, has three children, who were born in 1927, 1929 and 1934, respectively.
After certain bequests of household furnishings and personal effects, the testator devised and bequeathed the entire residue of his estate to his executors in trust and directed that at the expiration of fifteen months after his death the entire residuary personal estate be divided into three equal shares. One share was set apart to provide an annuity of $10,000 for his widow for life, and another share to provide an annuity of $5,000 for his son, Harry Good, for life, the excess of the income in each instance to be paid to testator's daughter, Kate, during the respective lives of the annuitants. Upon the death of each annuitant, the corpus of his or her share was to be paid over to Kate, if she survived. In the event Kate did not survive each annuitant, the excess income was directed to be paid to ‘the surviving issue of my said daughter’ during the lives of the annuitants, and upon the death of each annuitant the corpus likewise was to be transferred to ‘the surviving issue of my said daughter.’ The third share was set apart to pay the entire income thereof to Kate for life, with remainder over upon her death to ‘the surviving issue of my said daughter.’
Both of the annuitants predeceased Kate and the corpus of the two shares set up for their benefit was duly paid to Kate. The third share continued in trust for the benefit of Kate until her death in March, 1947, and it is the distribution of the corpus thereof, which consists of approximately $1,000,000, that is the subject of the present controversy. In addition to the personalty, there is a one-third interest in certain New Jersey real estate owned by testator at the time of his death, which was held by the court below to pass as part of the corpus of the trust. The testator also had real estate situated in New York and Colorado but the Vice Chancellor declined to pass on its disposition for the reason that this was a matter governed by the law of the respective states in which the property is located. No appeal has been taken from either of these determinations.
Kate was survived by her two children, Brent Orcutt and Anna Orcutt Hoyt, and three grandchildren, the children of Anna, who are the appellants here. The present bill was filed by the executors and trustees primarily to determine whether or not the corpus should be distributed per stirpes (one-half to each of Kate's children, excluding the grandchildren) or per capita (one-fifth to each of Kate's children and grandchildren).
The court below, after setting forth the basic rule...
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