New Britain Trust Co. v. Stanley

• Decision Date: 05 December 1941
• Citation: 128 Conn. 386,23 A.2d 142
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: NEW BRITAIN TRUST CO. et al. v. STANLEY et al.

23 A.2d 142

128 Conn. 386

NEW BRITAIN TRUST CO. et al.

v. STANLEY et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 5, 1941.

Case Reserved from Superior Court, Hartford County; Simpson, Judge.

Action by the New Britain Trust Company and another, trustees under the will of Katherine A. Stanley, deceased, against Isabel Stanley and others, for construction of will. On reservation for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors.

Judgment in accordance with opinion.

Argued before MALTBIE, C. J., and AVERY, BROWN, JENNINGS, and ELLS, JJ.

Mortimer H. Camp and Margaret P. Camp, both of New Britain, for plaintiffs.

Lawrence A. Howard, of Hartford (Cyril Coleman, of Hartford, on the brief), for defendants Hartford-Connecticut Trust Co., executor, et al.

Arthur E. Howard, Jr., of Hartford, for defendants Robert H. Stanley et al.

Roger W. Davis and Douglass B. Wright, both of Hartford, for defendant Isabel Stanley.

Harold N. Williams, of New Britain, appeared for defendant Alix W. Stanley, but did not argue the cause.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

Katherine A. Stanley of New Britain died June 26, 1927, leaving a will, the construction of a portion of which is sought in this action. The provisions material to the issue before us are as follows:

"16. All the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, both real and personal and wherever situate, I direct my executors hereinafter named to divide into two equal parts, and one of said equal parts I give, devise and bequeath to Alix W. Stanley, of New Britain, Connecticut, to be his absolutely, and the other equal part I give, devise and bequeath to The New Britain Trust Company, of New Britain, Connecticut, and Alix W. Stanley of said New Britain, in trust, however, for the following uses and purposes: to hold, manage, invest and reinvest the same during the natural lives of Mary Peck Stanley, of New Britain, Connecticut, and Isabel Stanley, of said New Britain, and the survivor of them, and to pay over one-quarter of the net income to or for the benefit of the said Mary Peck Stanley during her lifetime, and to pay over one-quarter of the net income to or for the benefit of the said Isabel Stanley during her lifetime, and to pay over the balance of the net income to or for the benefit of the children of my deceased brother, Walter H. Stanley, including his daughter Isabel Stanley and the issue of any deceased child per stirpes, to be divided equally among them, and at the decease of the survivor of said Mary Peck Stanley and Isabel Stanley, I direct that the balance of said trust fund be divided equally among the children of said Walter H. Stanley, including the issue of any deceased child per stirpes. * * *

"17. In case any legatee or devisee herein named, including residuary legatees and devisees, (except those taking under the trust fund created in Paragraph 16 of this will) should not be living at the time of my decease, then I give, devise, and bequeath the property he or she would have received if living to his or her heirs if said legatee or devisee died intestate, but if such legatee died leaving a will, then I give, devise and bequeath such property to the persons or corporations who would have taken under such will if said property were part of the estate of such deceased legatee."

When Miss Stanley died she was survived by the following persons: Alix W. Stanley; Mary Peck Stanley, the widow of a brother of the testatrix, Walter H. Stanley; Isabel Stanley, a daughter of Walter H. Stanley; three sons of Walter H. Stanley; five children of Theodore Stanley, a son of Walter H. Stanley who predeceased the testatrix, including Mrs. Katherine Stanley Wells; and descendants of some of these persons. Mary Peck Stanley subsequently died and an action was brought in which we were asked to construe the portions of the will now before us with reference to certain questions which then arose. Stanley v. Stanley, 108 Conn. 100, 142 A. 851. We treated the gift of income to the children of Walter H. Stanley and the issue of any deceased child as a gift to a class; we held that the children of Theodore Stanley were entitled, as legatees under the will, to a share in the income of the trust equal in the aggregate to that of each of the children of Walter H. Stanley who survived the testatrix; and we also held that the share of the income of the trust given to Mary Peck Stanley became, on her death, a part of the "balance" of the net income distributable to the beneficiaries described in the paragraph. Thereafter the income of the trust was distributed as follows: To Isabel Stanley, the 25 per cent specifically given to her and 15 per cent which she took as one of the children of Walter H. Stanley; to each of his other three surviving children, 15 per cent; and to each of the five children of Theodore Stanley, 3 per cent.

One of the latter, Mrs. Katherine Stanley Wells, died in 1939, leaving surviving her a husband and two sons; and one of the sons of Walter H. Stanley, Mortimer D. Stanley, has also died, leaving a widow and three children. Because of these deaths, other questions as to the meaning and effect of the portion of the will in question have arisen, which are now presented to us. All living persons who might be affected by our decision are parties to the action, and the trial court appointed a guardian ad litem to represent unborn and undetermined persons who might subsequently become interested, although when the court acted the statute authorizing such an appointment in a case of the nature of the one before us had not been enacted. General Statutes, Supp.1941, § 688f.

The immediate question which obviously confronts the trustees is to whom, in future distributions of the income, they shall pay the shares heretofore paid to Mrs. Wells and Mortimer Stanley, now that they are dead. That inquiry involves the question whether those who became entitled to share in the income immediately after the testatrix's death took a vested alienable and transmissible right to receive the income until the termination of the trust, or, if any of them died during the existence of the trust, their right to receive it terminated and their issue became entitled to share in the income as legatees under the will. The question is one immediately involved in the present administration of the trust but there is a possibility that unborn persons may have an interest in a determination of the rights involved in our answer. We are also asked to give advice as to the persons to whom the principal should be distributed on the death of Isabel Stanley, and the same possibility exists here, but there is the added consideration that the time to make such a distribution has not yet arrived.

The plaintiff asks us to hold that our decision will be binding upon persons hereafter born because they are virtually represented by living persons who are parties to the action and because a guardian ad litem has been appointed for unborn persons who might have an interest in the questions determined. We have on occasion determined the construction of a will though persons subsequently born might have an interest, Conn.App.Proc. § 128; but we have never held that such persons were concluded by our decision. None of the parties to this action are contesting the claim made by the plaintiff that our decision would be binding upon unborn persons and we are deprived of the aid which would be afforded by an argument against that claim. The case before us does not suggest limitations which ought to be placed upon the application of such a principle. See Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32, 61 S.Ct. 115; 85 L.Ed. 22, 132 A.L.R. 741. There is obvious danger in adopting any broad rule upon this subject. Living persons might, for reasons of their own or from mere neglect, let a decision be entered adverse to them in a situation where persons later born would have strong ground and a real interest in securing a different determination of the issues. We do not deem this to be a proper case in which to decide whether our decision will be binding upon persons subsequently born who might claim an interest in the estate.

Where there is a need to decide as to present rights between living persons, the determination of those rights need not be postponed because...