Marshall v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 24 March 1905
• Citation: Marshall v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 101 Md. 1, 60 A. 476 (Md. 1905)
• Parties: MARSHALL v. SAFE DEPOSIT & TRUST CO. HARDING v. SAME. LAKE v. SAME. MERCER v. SAME.
• Court: Maryland Supreme Court

60 A. 476

101 Md. 1

MARSHALL v. SAFE DEPOSIT & TRUST CO.

HARDING v. SAME.

LAKE v. SAME.

MERCER v. SAME.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 24, 1905

Appeals from Circuit Court of Baltimore City; Henry Stockbridge Judge.

Suit between John William Marshall, administrator c.t.a. of Samuel H. Mercer, deceased, and others, against the Safe Deposit & Trust Company of Baltimore City. From a decree for the latter, the former separately appeal. Dismissed as to one appeal, and reversed as to the others.

Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and FOWLER, BRISCOE, BOYD, PAGE PEARCE, and SCHMUCKER, JJ.

John W Marshall, for Marshall.

Edward I. Koontz, for Harding.

Charles McH. Howard, for Marie H. Mercer D.K. Este Fisher, for Schapiro et al.

George Whitelock, for Safe Deposit & Trust Co.

McSHERRY C.J.

The record now before us contains four appeals. They were taken against a decree passed by the circuit court of Baltimore City on the 31st day of December, 1904. By that decree the residuary clause of the last will and testament of the late Lavinia Hopkins was interpreted. The testatrix died on November 28, 1884. The clause which has given rise to these cases, after first directing that all of the residue of the estate of the testatrix should be converted into money by the executor named in the will, then gave the sum thus realized unto the Safe Deposit & Trust Company of Baltimore City "in trust to be by said Company invested in such securities or in such manner as the officers of said Company shall deem most judicious for the use and benefit of my grandchildren Sam'l H. Mercer, George D. Mercer, Mary S. Mercer and Margaret W. Mercer for the term of twenty years, reckoning from the day of my death, the interest and income thereof to be equally divided between them share and share alike and at the expiration of the said term of twenty years the said sum shall be equally divided between them, but in the event of any of my grandchildren dying within the said period of twenty years, then and in that case it is my wish that the share or income of such child so dying shall be paid to his or her children per stirpes, and not per capita, but in case any grandchild should die without issue, then and in that case the share of such grandchild shall be equally divided between the surviving grandchildren, in all cases the children of any grandchild to have such grandchild's share per stirpes and not per capita, both in regard to the income during the said period of twenty years and at the final division of my estate at the termination of that period." The circuit court held that under this clause the time for the vesting in right and in possession of the residue of the decedent's estate, and all shares thereof, was fixed at the end of the 20-year trust period; and that, inasmuch as Margaret W. Mercer, now Schapiro, was the only one of the four named grandchildren alive at the time, and as none of those who had died had left any child or descendants surviving, Mrs. Schapiro was entitled to the whole trust fund. Mrs. Schapiro having previously executed a deed of trust to the Safe Deposit & Trust Company, the decree directed the fund to be transferred to that company for her benefit. That company accordingly appears as the appellee in all four cases, and claims the whole trust fund for her. The contention of the four appellants will be set forth presently.

The 20-year trust period fixed in the will came to an end on the 28th of November, 1904, and on that day the corpus of the trust estate became distributable. On May 13, 1887, George D. Mercer, one of the four grandchildren named in the residuary clause, died. He left a widow, but no child, surviving him. He never had had issue. By his will he disposed of all his property to his wife, Jennie W. Mercer, who has since married James R.S. Lake, and she, together with her last-named husband, is appellant in one of the four cases. She claims, we suppose, the one-fourth interest in the whole trust fund to which her husband would have been entitled if he had survived the 20-year trust period. We say we suppose she makes the claim just indicated, because there is no other that she could possibly set up, and, as the sequel will show, this one is wholly untenable. The next one of the four named grandchildren who died was Samuel H. Mercer, and he departed this life on January 27, 1897. He left a widow, Marie Henriette Mercer, surviving him, but he, too, had never had any children. He died testate, and by his will he gave all of his estate to that widow. She is one of the appellants on the record, and she claims, in right of her deceased husband and under his will, one third of George D. Mercer's original share, which, she contends, accrued to her husband on the death of George. Mr. John W. Marshall is the administrator c.t.a. of Samuel H. Mercer's estate, and in that capacity appears as appellant in another of the four appeals. As the right he represents is identical with that asserted by Mrs. Marie Henriette Mercer, both of these appeals will be treated as one case. On September 6, 1904, Mary S. Mercer, another of the four named grandchildren, died. She had married A. Sterling Pennington. The issue of that marriage was a son, who died in 1892. In 1887 Mr. Pennington died, and his widow subsequently married Charles H. Harding, who now survives her. They had no issue. She left a will, by which she gave the residuum of her estate to her husband, and named him executor. He appears, individually and in his capacity of executor, as appellant in one of the cases, and claims, in right of his wife and under her will, a one-third of the original share of George D. Mercer, which, he contends, accrued to his wife on the death of George, and, in addition, a one-half of the original share of Samuel H. Mercer, which, he also contends, accrued to his wife on the death of Samuel.

We do not propose to review or discuss the large number of cases cited in the several briefs which have been filed, because, in considering questions like those here involved, adjudications interpreting other wills are more apt to be confusing than helpful. And this is so because slight variations in the phraseology of other wills, and dissimilarity in the conditions surrounding other testators, necessarily influence the conclusions reached in other instances. The same word has often different meanings ascribed to it in different cases, in order that the apparent testamentary intention might be given effect in each. There are certain fixed and unbending legal principles which it is necessary to invoke in many instances, even though they may, when followed, thwart an obvious intention; and there are others equally well settled, which, whilst producing no such result, are so universal and uniform in their application that testators are treated as having drawn their will in accordance with and in subordination to their effect. When, therefore, a situation arises where the words written in a will must be interpreted so as to ascertain the testamentary intention, and so as to uphold it when ascertained, the words will be read in the light of these last-named principles, and be given a meaning which they require.

Unless the will clearly and unmistakably shows, or unless there is plainly inferable therefrom, an intention to postpone until the end of the 20-year period the vesting in right of all interests whatever in the trust estate, the more modern rule, which favors an early vesting where there are two periods to which the vesting may be referred, will be followed, and the estate will be held to have vested not at the remote, but at the earlier, period. Cox v. Handy, 78 Md. 108, 27 A. 227, 501, and the recent case of Hoover v. Smith. 96 Md. 398, 54 A. 102, are apposite illustrations of this rule. No beneficial interest is given to the trustee under the will before us. The fund is bequeathed to the safe deposit and trust company in trust for the use and benefit of the four named grandchildren during a period of 20 years, and at the end of that time the trustee is directed to equally divide the fund between them; in the meantime, however, it is required to pay over the income to them. They were given the right to have immediate possession of the income, but their right to the possession of the corpus was postponed for 20 years. But postponement of possession does not, of itself, indicate an intention to postpone a vesting.

The four named grandchildren took vested equitable interests in the residue, defeasible upon their death within 20 years after the decease of the testatrix. And these equitable interests were thus defeasible because upon the death of any one of the four within the period named, his or her share was, by the terms of the clause, limited over in the alternative manner which will be discussed in a moment. When the residuary clause created the trust for the four grandchildren, and restricted the duration of that trust to a definite number of years, it did not stop there. The testatrix appreciated the possibility of at least some of the four dying before the expiration of the trust, and she was confronted with two contingencies in respect to that possibility. One was the contingency of the death of a grandchild within the trust period who left issue surviving, and the other was the contingency of the death of a grandchild within the trust period who left no issue surviving; and for both of those contingencies she proceeded to make provision. The provision thus made conclusively indicates that the original shares given by the first part of the clause were, and were intended to be, vested, but defeasible, equitable interests. The first contingency dealt with was that of the death of a grandchild leaving issue surviving. This event...