Johns Hopkins University v. Uhrig

• Decision Date: 01 February 1924
• Docket Number: 114,115.
• Citation: Johns Hopkins University v. Uhrig, 145 Md. 114, 125 A. 606 (Md. 1924)
• Parties: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY v. UHRIG. UHRIG v. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

125 A. 606

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY v. UHRIG.

UHRIG v. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

145 Md. 114

Nos. 114, 115.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

February 1, 1924

Appeals from Orphans' Court of Baltimore City.

"To be officially reported."

In the matter of the estate of Edward W. Uhrig, deceased, otherwise known as Charles O'Malley. From orders of the orphans' court as to distribution of estate, the Johns Hopkins University and Augusta L. Uhrig, widow, appeal. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and case remanded.

Argued before BRISCOE, THOMAS, URNER, ADKINS, and OFFUTT, JJ.

Charles McHenry Howard, of Baltimore (Venable, Baetjer & Howard, of Baltimore, on the brief), for the Johns Hopkins University.

Shirley Carter, of Baltimore, for Uhrig.

URNER J.

The will of Edward W. Uhrig, a resident of California, who died in that state on July 20th, 1921, contains the following provision:

"I give, devise and bequeath to the Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Baltimore, Maryland, all the shares of stock, bonds and other securities which were delivered to me as the one-half share devised and bequeathed to me by my father John Uhrig, by the trustees under his will, and said property is specifically described in and set forth in the agreement of partition and division executed by myself and others and Anna C. Uhrig and others, trustees, in trust, for the uses and purposes and powers following, that is to say in trust, to take charge and possession thereof and collect the income and profits, and after paying all taxes and necessary expenses to pay the net income to my wife for and during her natural life or until she again marries, without power of anticipation or alienation, and free from liability for her debts, and from and after her death or marriage then to pay the net income to my sisters, Miss Anna C. Uhrig, and Mrs. Amelia Schmidtborn, share and share alike, and upon the death of either sister the net income to the surviving sister, and from and after their deaths then in trust to transfer and convey the same to the trustees of the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, for the purpose of establishing or assisting to establish and maintain a chair or course in eugenics--the future of man."

A codicil to the will provided that the Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Baltimore, Md., which had been appointed by the will as executor to administer the whole estate, should act in that capacity only as to any part of the estate requiring administration outside of the state of California, a local executor being appointed by the codicil to administer the assets of the testator within that state.

At the time of his death the testator owned certain securities in Maryland, which were in the possession of his sister, Anna C Uhrig, a resident of Baltimore, and which included some of the stocks and bonds mentioned in his will as having been received by him in the settlement of his father's estate. The value of the entire estate for distribution is $20,081.10. The California assets represent $4,353.03, and the Maryland assets $15,728.07 of that valuation. The securities in this state which the testator received from the source specified in his will, and bequeathed in trust for the ultimate use of Johns Hopkins University, consist of stocks and bonds valued at $7,150.25, and with them are bonds of the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company, of Baltimore, appraised at $4,650, which the testator acquired on the company's reorganization, in exchange for shares of its stock which had been delivered to him in the division of the estate of his father.

The Civil Code of California, by section 1313, provides that no devise or bequest to any charitable or benevolent society or corporation, or in trust for charitable uses, shall "exceed one-third of the estate of the testator, leaving legal heirs, and in such case a pro rata deduction from such devises and bequests shall be made so as to reduce the aggregate thereof to one-third of such estate. * * *" The will from which we have quoted was made by a testator who left legal heirs (a widow, two sisters, a brother, and a nephew), and it bequeathed more than one-third of his estate eventually for an object within the purview of the California law just cited. The trust provisions of the will are not in conflict with any law of Maryland. It is provided by the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland (article 93, § 334) that every will or testamentary instrument executed out of this state, in the manner prescribed by the law of the testator's domicile, shall have the same force and effect as if executed in the mode required by the law of this state, provided such will is in writing and subscribed by the testator, and that, "if the testator was originally domiciled in Maryland, although at the time of making the will or at the time of his death he may be domiciled elsewhere, the said last will or testamentary instrument then so executed shall be admitted to probate in any orphans' court of this state; and when so admitted shall be governed by and construed and interpreted according to the law of Maryland, without regard to the lex domicilii, unless the testator shall expressly declare a contrary intention in said will or testamentary instrument."

The testator with whose will we are now concerned was a native of Maryland, but went to California in his early manhood. He died there at the age of 63 years. A duly authenticated copy of his will, and of the record of its probate in Los Angeles county, Cal., was filed in the orphans' court of Baltimore city, and letters testamentary thereon were granted by that court to the Safe Deposit & Trust Company as the executor appointed by the will for the administration of the estate of the decedent outside of the state of his last domicile. By suitable proceedings in the orphans' court the question was raised as to whether the estate in Maryland, bequeathed in trust for the establishment of a course in eugenics at Johns Hopkins University, should be proportionately reduced in conformity with the California statute, or should be distributed, free of any such restriction, in view of the Maryland Code provision which we have quoted. Another question similarly presented was whether the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company bonds, received by the testator on the reorganization of the company, in lieu of stock which passed to him in the division of his father's estate, were within the description of assets which the will specifically bequeathed for the purposes of the trust. The orphans' court decided that the California law controls the distribution, and that the bonds in question are included in the bequest. The Johns Hopkins University has appealed from the decision because of the limitation it imposed upon the value of the trust estate vesting in final remainder, and Augusta L. Uhrig, the testator's widow, has appealed from the order of the court in so far as it treated the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company bonds as forming part of the trust estate.

The theory that the law of California applies to the distribution in controversy rests upon the fact that the will of the testator was not probated in the orphans' court of Baltimore city according to the ordinary method of probate procedure. But the practical purposes of a probate have been accomplished by the production in that court of a duly authenticated copy of the will, and of the official record of the proof by the attesting witnesses of its execution, as filed in the superior court of Los Angeles county in the state of California. If the will had been probated here in the usual way, it is evident, and not disputed, that the law of Maryland would govern the distribution under the will of the assets which are here being administered. The other conditions under which section 334 of article 93 of the Code applies are shown to exist. It is a fact that the testator was originally domiciled in Maryland, and there is no declaration in the will of a testamentary intention contrary to the application of the Maryland law. Moreover, the testator acquired in...