Linahan v. Linahan

• Citation: 39 A.2d 895,131 Conn. 307
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Decision Date: 08 November 1944
• Parties: LINAHAN et al. v. LINAHAN et al.

131 Conn. 307

39 A.2d 895

LINAHAN et al.

v.LINAHAN et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Nov. 8, 1944.

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Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Wynne, Judge.

Action by Augustine F. Linahan and others, trustees, against Augustine F. Linahan, Anna L. Linahan, and others for a declaratory judgment determining the duties of the trustees and the rights of the defendants with respect to trust property. Anna L. Linahan filed a counterclaim. The action was tried to the court. From a judgment that the trust was valid and adjudging the interest of the parties in the property, the defendant Anna L. Linahan, individually and as executrix of the estate of James Linahan, deceased, appeals.

No error.

The appellant filed a motion for reargument which was denied.

John Q. Tilson, of Washington, D. C., George E. Beers and Thomas A. Grimes, both of New Haven, and Hilbert I. Trachman and Irving R. Krosner, both of New York City, for appellant (defendant Anna L. Linahan).

Ralph H. Clark, of New Haven, and Frank Weinstein, of New York City (Edward L. Reynolds and James J. Corrigan, both of New Haven, on the brief), for the appellees (plaintiffs).

David M. Reilly, of New Haven, for appellees (named defendant et al.).

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The plaintiffs, three children of Thomas H. Linahan, deceased, brought this action, describing themselves as surviving trustees under a trust established by their father by a written agreement to which he, the plaintiffs and his other child, James, were the parties. James, named in the agreement as a fourth trustee, died in 1936, leaving a widow but no children. She is executrix of his estate. The plaintiffs as individuals and James's widow, individually and as executrix, were made defendants. The issues concern her rights as an individual and as executrix to share in the property included within the agreement and now in the possession of the plaintiffs, and in the income from it. The trial court found that she had no such rights either as an individual or as executrix. She has appealed in both capacities. In our discussion of the case we shall refer to her as the defendant, only distinguishing between her claims in one capacity or the other when necessary to make clear our decision. The issues presented are many; the finding is long; and the defendant has made numerous assignments of error seeking corrections in and additions to it. Many of these are referred to in her brief only under a general statement that they ought to be made, and such a claim imposes no obligation upon us to regard them. We have considered the other assignments of error as to the finding and have taken into account such few material corrections or additions as should be made. We shall not, however, discuss these assignments or state the facts except in so far as necessary to make clear the application of the pertinent rules of law; and we shall consider no claims of law not necessary to our decision.

The complaint as finally amended concluded with the allegation usual in a suit by trustees for advice, that the plaintiffs could not with safety to themselves or the rights of the parties complete their duties and distribute the fund in their possession without the advice of the court; but it then proceeded to claim a declaratory judgment to determine whether a trust had been validly created, whether it had been legally continued beyond its original term by a certain supplementary agreement, what were the rights and powers of the plaintiffs, and what rights James's estate and his widow individually had in the fund and its income. The defendant filed an answer and counterclaim which, in addition to admissions and denials, contained twenty-one so-called defenses, and concluded with a prayer for judgment dismissing the complaint and declaring that James's estate, or, in the alternative, his widow, had certain rights in the fund and its income. The defendant filed a general claim of the case for the jury docket. The court, on motion, ordered that the defendant file a list of the issues of fact which she claimed should be submitted to the jury. She filed a statement of such issues, in thirty-two paragraphs. The plaintiffs then moved to have the case stricken from the jury docket. The motion was granted, and this is assigned as error.

As regards the cause of action stated in the complaint, the question so raised is very largely determined by our decision in Meriden Savings Bank v. McCormack, 79 Conn. 260, 64 A. 338. That was a suit in the nature of interpleader, brought under a statute enacted subsequently to the adoption of our constitution in 1818; the action as such was not, therefore, within its provision that ‘The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate’; Const. Conn., Art. I, § 21; and it was within the statutory provision that all ‘special statutory proceedings which, prior to January 1, 1880, were not, triable by jury, shall be entered on the docket as court cases.’ General Statutes, § 5624. We pointed out that the issues in the case were such as might have been fully litigated in equity without resort to the statute and that it could not properly be claimed for the jury. So, in the case before us, an action to secure a declaratory judgment is a special statutory proceeding within the provisions of § 5624; the complaint in this case is in reality one by trustees seeking the advice of a court sitting in equity as to the performance of their duties; the cause of action stated in it is in its essence an appeal to the equity jurisdiction of the court; and it could be maintained in equity without resort to the statute. The provision in the rules, Practice Book 1934, p. 78, § 251, concerning declaratory judgments, that issues of fact in actions for such relief ‘may be submitted to the jury as in other actions,’ does not enlarge the right to a jury trial which would otherwise exist. The cause of action stated in the complaint is not one which the defendant had a right to have tried by jury.

The first seven so-called defenses allege matters properly presented only by pleas in abatement and to the jurisdiction; they afford no grounds for a counterclaim and may be disregarded; and the prayer for relief that the complaint be dismissed, evidently based on them, falls with them. For the most part, the other ‘defenses' merely state the defendant's claims or allege facts in support of them within the scope of the cause of action set forth in the complaint. The answer and counterclaim do contain certain allegations upon which the defendant bases a prayer for relief by way of adjudication of her rights in the fund and its income if it should be decided, as she claims, either that no trust was ever validly established or that it had terminated for reasons extraneous to the agreements of the parties. In either of these events the defendant would not be entitled to receive any of the property except by reason of her deceased husband's right to participate in the distribution of his father's estate; and the rights of the husband's estate would have to be worked out through the medium of a resulting trust. Bassett v. Pallotti, Andretta & Co., Inc., 117 Conn. 58, 62, 166 A. 752; Waterbury Trust Co. v. Porter, 131 Conn. 206, 217, 38 A.2d 598. A cause of action based upon the claimed existence of such a trust is one in equity not triable as of right to the jury. Doris v. McFarland, 113 Conn. 594, 608, 156 A. 52. The counterclaim does not state a cause of action triable as of right to the jury.

It is true that, though a cause of action is not as a whole triable by jury, issues may be presented upon the pleadings which a party has a right to have submitted to them. Miles v. Strong, 68 Conn. 273, 286, 36 A. 55; Dawson v. Orange, 78 Conn. 96, 100, 61 A. 101; National Bank of Commerce of New London v. Howland, 128 Conn. 307, 310, 22 A.2d 773. The principal issues of fact raised by the pleadings are in substance that the agreement was never intended to create a trust but was a subterfuge for the accomplishment of other purposes, that there had been no such transfer of property under its terms as to make effective any intended trust, and that the trust had been abandoned or terminated by agreement of the parties, with subordinate claims of estoppel, waiver and laches. Most of these issues were also included in the statement of issues of fact to be submitted to the jury filed by the defendant, but they are there submerged among issues of law and matters of detail which could not properly be incorporated in the interrogatories upon which to base a special verdict. None of these issues as they appeared in the pleadings when the case was ordered stricken from the jury docket was so distinctly cognizable at law as to give the defendant a right to have it submitted to a jury. Berry v. Hartford National Bank & Trust Co., 125 Conn. 615, 618, 7 A.2d 847; Dzubin v. Dzubin, 121 Conn. 646, 649, 186 A. 652. In the Berry case, we said that the trial court might properly have construed the complaint as one in which the plaintiffs sought to have certain funds the defendant claimed to hold in trust delivered to them, with an accounting by it of its handling of the funds and damages for breach of trust, and we held that the court did not err in striking the case from the jury docket. We reach a like conclusion in this case.

The agreement, dated December 29, 1919, was signed by Thomas, the father, and by his four children, James, Lulu, Agatha and Augustine, both as individuals and as trustees. It recited that Thomas ‘hereby sells, assigns, conveys and transfers' to them as trustees certain personal property listed in it, consisting of corporate stocks, mortgage bonds, mortgage notes and a small unsecured note, and that he might transfer to them other property to become a part of the fund. It went on to...