Robinson v. Crutcher
| Decision Date | 15 February 1919 |
| Citation | 209 S.W. 104,277 Mo. 1 |
| Parties | EARL T. ROBINSON et al., Appellants, v. JAMES M. CRUTCHER, Executor, et al |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Monroe Circuit Court. -- Hon. W. T. Ragland, Judge.
Reversed and remanded (with directions).
Frank W. McAllister and Strop & Mayer for appellants.
(1) A grantee under a deed or a legatee or devisee under a will must be capable of taking and holding property. Neither inert matter nor a symbol representing inert matter, can be a grantee under a deed or legatee under a will. There is an entire want of capacity to accept or reject, to take or to hold. The public school fund and the township school fund are mere names. They designate simply moneys. These moneys themselves cannot be identified or ascertained except by tracing them to their different sources. The county school fund and the township school fund designate dead, inanimate matter. They are neither a person or corporation nor an association or society composed of individuals with capacity to take. A court cannot make a trust out of such devise or bequest in favor of the testator's heirs or anybody else. Spencer v. DeWitt Library, 73 N.Y.S. 714; Douthitt v. Stinson, 63 Mo. 268; Thomas v Wyatt, 25 Mo. 24; Doedem. Hearn v. Cannon, 15 Am. Rep. 701; Stennett v. Hall, 74 Iowa 279; Billingsley v. Tongue, 9 Md. 575; Tractly v Martin, 80 N.C. 643; Scales v. Scales, 59 N.C 163; Sloan v. House, 2 Rawle, 28; Barnet's Appeal, 104 Pa. 342. (2) Where a testator has used clear and unambiguous language and has thereby made provision which is clearly invalid and void because contrary to a positive rule of law, a court of equity will not rewrite the will or do for him what he has not done for himself. Wells v. Fuchs, 226 Mo. 106; Hadley v. Forsee, 203 Mo. 428; Board of Trustees v. May, 201 Mo. 370; Douthitt v. Stinson, 63 Mo. 268; Tilden v. Green, 14 L. R. A. 3; Cottman v. Grace, 112 N.Y. 299; Central Trust Co. v. Eggleston, 185 N.Y. 968; Jones v. Jones, 223 Mo. 450; Buckner v. Buckner, 255 Mo. 377; Burnett v. Burnett, 244 Mo. 497. (3) If a man wills his property to a thing which has no capacity to take, or in a manner made invalid and void by positive rules of law, his property will decend to his relatives. Hadley v. Forsee, 203 Mo. 428; Corby v. Corby, 85 Mo. 371; Corporation v. Wood, 3 Hare (Ch.) 147; Wells v. Fuchs, 226 Mo. 106. (4) Before a trust can be created, there must be a separation of the legal estate from the beneficial enjoyment, and a trust cannot exist where the same person possesses both. 5 R. C. L. 294-295, sec. 4; 1 Lewin on Trust, 14; Hill on Trusts (4 Am. Ed.) 86, 99; 1 Perry on Trusts, 11; Doan v. Vestry of the Parish of the Ascension, 103 Md. 662, 115 Am. St. Rep. 379. In this will there is not a word of any kind or character which can be tortured into showing any intent on the part of the testator to restrain or direct, in any manner whatsoever, the beneficial enjoyment of the bequest.
Roy B. Meriwether, Alex. T. Stuart, James J. Browning and J. H. Whitecotton for respondents.
(1) Gifts to charitable uses have always received favorable consideration and are often upheld where private trusts fail. Hadley v. Forsee, 203 Mo. 427; Chambers v. St. Louis, 29 Mo. 543; Academy v. Clemens, 50 Mo. 167; Schmidt v. Hess, 60 Mo. 591; Howe v. Wilson, 91 Mo. 45; Hist. Society v. Academy, 94 Mo. 459; Powell v. Hatch, 100 Mo. 592; Barkley v. Donnelly, 112 Mo. 561; Sappington v. Trustees, 123 Mo. 210; Lackland v. Walker, 151 Mo. 210; In re Graves, 242 Ill. 23; Mott v. Morris, 249 Mo. 137; 11 Corpus Juris, p. 307, sec. 12; In re Creighton Estate, 60 Neb. 796. (2) Even if the words of a gift are ambiguous or contradictory they are so construed as to support the charity if possible. It is an established maxim of interpretation that the court is bound to carry the gift into effect if it can see a general charitable intention with the rules of law if the particular manner indicated by the donor is illegal or impracticable. Under this doctrine the provisions of the will are administered as near the intention of the testator as possible. Sappington v. School Fund Trustees, 123 Mo. 42; Lackland v. Walker, 151 Mo. 210; Mott v. Morrison, 249 Mo. 137; Heuser v. Harris, 42 Ill. 425; Brown v. Kelsey, 2 Cush. (Mass.) 243; Winslow v. Cummings, 3 Cush. (Mass.) 358; Washburn v. Sewall, 9 Metc. (Mass.) 280; Grand Prairie Seminary v. Morgan, 171 Ill. 444; Hoeffer v. Clogan, 171 Ill. 462; Hood v. Dorer, 107 Wis. 149. (3) Each county has the power of acting as trustee for charitable uses and as such trustee to take and hold by gift, grant or bequest or devise, money and other property, to be given, granted, bequeathed or devised, in trust for charitable uses, and shall have the power, by and through its county court, of executing trusts created in it for charitable uses in as full and ample a manner as an individual. Sec. 3746, R. S. 1909; Laws 1913, p. 194; Secs. 3747, 3748, R. S. 1909. (4) It is not necessary to the valid appointment of a trustee of a charitable trust that he shall be specified by name or that the word trustee shall be used, provided it appears to the satisfaction of the court that the duties to be performed are such as are properly to be performed by one who is a trustee and that the individual is designated with sufficient precision to leave no doubt as to the identity. 11 Corpus Juris, 331; Kemmerer v. Kemmerer, 233 Ill. 327; Baltimore Annual Conference M. E. Church Book Depository v. M. E. Church Rooms Fund, 117 Md. 86. (5) The intention of the testator to create a trust is to be gathered in each case from the general purpose and scope of the will, and testator's intention is not to be gathered from technical words, but from the whole instrument. Peak v. Jamison, 6 Mo.App. 590; Ryder v. Lyon, 85 Conn. 245; Thompson on Wills, 295, sec. 338; C. J. p. 313, sec. 18; Cook v. Universalist General Convention, 101 N.W. 217. If donor has indicated generally a charitable purpose and has fixed the means whereby a scheme of executing same may be ascertained to enable the court to enforce same, that is all that is required. Grant v. Sanders, 121 Iowa 80; Jordan v. Richmond Home for Ladies, 106 Va. 710; Harrington v. Pier, 105 Wis. 485; 11 C. J. p. 327, sec. 40. "A gift to a charitable use, to be valid, must designate the particular charitable use by making the gift to some corporation whose charter provides for a charitable use of its funds, or to some particular object or purpose that the law recognizes as charitable; and it is enough if the object to be mentioned, and the law can see that it is a charitable one." 5 R. C. L. 349, sec. 84. (6) Testator orders said funds turned over to the lawful custodians of said funds. The county court by operation of law had the control and management of the various school funds and the county is made, by statutory provisions, the trustee of charitable uses for the county, with full power to execute said trusts. (7) Testator has indicated generally a charitable purpose, that of benefiting the public through the public schools; he has fixed the means of ascertaining the method of executing the same, that of the provisions of the statutes, which are plain, explicit and amply sufficient; the beneficiaries are sufficiently designated, the subject-matter is certain, the legal and equitable titles are separated, the context of the will clearly establishes a public charity. Cook v. Universalist General Convention, 101 N.W. 217; Schneider v. Kloepple, 270 Mo. 399. (8) Equity will not permit these trusts to fail because its particular purposes are uncertain, or for the want of a trustee, though no existing donee is named in the trust. Chambers v. City of St. Louis, 29 Mo. 543; American Bible Society v. Wetmore, 17 Conn. 181; Vidal v. Philadelphia, 43 U.S. 127 (How.) , 11 L.Ed. 205; Hunt v. Fowler, 121 Ill. 269. (9) Bequests much more indefinite than this have been upheld as follows: A bequest by testator "to the poor of Madison County," and also a bequest "to the suffering poor of the town of Auburn." In each of these bequests, there was no appointment of a trustee to administer the trust nor any direction as to how one should be appointed, but in each instance the bequest was held valid as a public charity and the court of chancery appointed trustees to execute the trust. Howard v. American Peace Society, 49 Mo. 288 A bequest "to the Sunday School of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Tuckerton" was maintained as a public charity and the church to which the Sunday School was an incident was appointed as a trustee in equity to carry out this bequest as a public charity. Mason v. Methodist Episcopal Church, 27 N.J.Eq. 47.
OPINION
In Banc
The heirs of Temple B. Robinson, deceased, brought this suit to have the fifth, sixth and seventh clauses of his will construed. These provisions concern the disposition of two-thirds of the testator's property. The defendants are the executor of the estate, the judges of the county court, and the treasurer of Monroe County. The judgment of the circuit court was in favor of the validity of the will. Plaintiffs appealed from this finding.
Temple B. Robinson had never married. He died in Monroe County, in January, 1914. The petition alleges the invalidity of the provisions of his will mentioned, because of the absence therein of a donee, legatee, or beneficiary; that said clauses are void for uncertainty, and hence impossible of execution; and that as to two-thirds of the estate thus bequeathed, the donor died intestate, and that said property should pass and descend to his heirs at law who are the...
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