Lyme High School Ass'n v. Alling

• Decision Date: 16 April 1931
• Citation: 154 A. 439,113 Conn. 200
• Parties: LYME HIGH SCHOOL ASS'N v. ALLING, Atty. Gen.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

154 A. 439

113 Conn. 200

LYME HIGH SCHOOL ASS'N v. ALLING, Atty. Gen.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 16, 1931

Case reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; Christopher L. Avery, Judge.

Suit by the Lyme High School Association against Benjamin W. Alling Attorney General, for construction of the will of Evelyn MacCurdy Salisbury, late of New Haven, brought to the superior court and reserved by the court for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors.

Decree in accordance with opinion.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

Rollin U. Tyler, of Deep River, for plaintiff.

L Horatio Biglow, Jr., of Deep River, for defendant Town of Old Lyme.

Bernard A. Kosicki, of Middletown, for defendant Attorney General.

MALTBIE, C.J.

Evelyn MacCurdy Salisbury died in 1917 leaving a lengthy will and a codicil, the relevant portions of which are quoted in the footnote.^[1] The plaintiff, named in several places in the will and codicil as a beneficiary, is a corporation without capital stock organized in 1893 for these purposes: " The purpose for which such Association is constituted is to establish and maintain a School of high grade in said Old Lyme, to contract or agree with any other educational institution or town for the purpose of establishing or maintaining said School, to receive and hold grants, devises and gifts of real and personal property for educational purposes, and generally to do all things incidental to said business." The testatrix and her husband were among the original incorporators. Since her death the association has received the $12,500 referred to in the third article of the will and also income to a considerable amount under the codicil. It also holds other money received by it from the testatrix during her life and from other sources. It now seeks a declaratory judgment determining a large number of questions which have arisen as to the capacity in which, and the limitations under which, it holds the moneys received from the estate, the management and use of the funds in its hands and the effect and validity of certain of the conditions annexed to the gifts from the testatrix.

In the third article the testatrix requests the association to accept and hold the $12,500, together with any other money or property which comes from her estate to it, and refers to her gift as " all my bequests to said Association" : in the seventh article she makes a contingent gift of $10,000 to the association: in the codicil she directs that during the life of the life tenant of the residuary estate one-half of the net income shall be paid annually to the association; and in the sixteenth article she gives the balance of her residuary estate after the death of the life tenant to the association to be added to the fund she had created in the third article. Nowhere in the will is there any provision that the gifts to the association shall be held by it in trust, nor any provision for the way in which they shall be managed and used, except certain conditions which she imposed. The gifts to it are not therefore trusts in the proper sense of the term, but are made directly to it to be held and used for its corporate purposes, except as limited by the conditions imposed in the will. Dwyer v. Leonard, 100 Conn. 513, 519, 124 A. 28; Pierce v. Phelps, 75 Conn. 83, 85, 52 A. 612. The stated purpose of the association being solely the furtherance of education, the gifts fall within our statute of charitable uses as it existed when the gifts were made and still does. General Statutes, Rev. 1902. § 4026: General Statutes 1930, § 5000; Dwyer v. Leonard, supra; Eecles v. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co., 90 Conn. 592, 599, 98 A. 129; Corbin v. Baldwin, 92 Conn. 99, 111, 101 A. 834, Ann.Cas. 1918E, 932; Hoyt v. Bliss, 93 Conn. 344, 350, 105 A. 699. The gifts, therefore, in the words of the statute, " shall forever remain to the uses" for which they were given, and the mere lapse of the 99-year period fixed for the accumulation of interest will not in any way affect the uses to which they may be put. Not being in trust, but to the corporation for its corporate purposes, they cannot be attached for uncertainty in the designation of the uses to be made of them or the persons to be benefited by them. To the gifts the testatrix attached certain conditions, and, by its acceptance of the moneys, the association became bound to administer them in accordance with those conditions. State v. Blake, 69 Conn. 64, 73, 36 A. 1019; Spofford v. Manning, 6 Paige (N. Y.) 383, 388; Bird v. Hawkins, 58 N.J.Eq. 229, 243, 42 A. 588.

There is nothing illegal in the conditions; the provision for an condition for an addition of one-third of the income to the principal for 99 years, " or as long as the law allows," is not void as an illegal provision for an accumulation, nor at present at least is there any apparent reason why the accumulation should not continue for the full period of 99 years. In the case of gifts to charities the ordinary rule against accumulations does not apply, the only limitation being in the power of the court to take remedial measures should an unreasonable condition result. Woodruff v. Marsh, 63 Conn. 125, 127, 26 A. 846, 38 Am.St.Rep. 346: Colonial Trust Co. v. Waldron, 112 Conn. 316, 322, 152 A. 69.

It was obviously the intent of the testatrix in her will to create a single general fund to be composed of all the money and property received from her estate under any or all the articles of the will; and the share of the income of her residuary estate, as soon as paid to the association becomes a part of the principal of that fund, just as much as does the principal of the residuary estate when turned over to it on the death of the life tenant. Out of this general fund, however, she directed that the special fund of $12,500, with additions of interest, referred to in the third article of her will, should be carved. All the money or property received, under the will was intended to constitute " the MacCurdy-Salisbury Fund" and should be held and managed as a distinct fund, apart from the other moneys or properties of the association. The fund should, however, be divided into two accounts, one consisting of the $12,500 special fund, with the additions of income specified, and, the other, of all the other moneys and properties received from the estate. Subject to the limitations already stated, one-third of the income of each should be added to the principal for the period of 99 years. Both funds are also subject to the condition stated in the third article that no part of the income shall be used for educational purposes in any building owned or occupied by the town unless it should first appropriate for teachers salaries at least as much for the year " as it now appropriates," that is, as it appropriated at the time the will was executed. Gold v. Judson, 21 Conn. 616, 622. Both funds are also subject to the conditions contained in the sixteenth article that no part of the income shall be used for the care or maintenance of any building or grounds, or for additions thereto, unless they are a part of the fund, and that the association shall annually appropriate from the income of the fund...