Watkins v. Bigelow

• Decision Date: 06 December 1904
• Citation: 101 N.W. 497,93 Minn. 361
• Parties: WATKINS et al. v. BIGELOW et al.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

93 Minn. 361

101 N.W. 497

WATKINS et al.

v.BIGELOW et al.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 6, 1904.

Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; George L. Bunn, Judge.

Action by Victor M. Watkins and Charles N. Bell, surviving trustees, against Corcoran Thom and others. From the judgment, Robert H. Merriam appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Certain provisions of the will of W., set out in the opinion, construed, and held that they gave to M. a legacy of $10,000, payable only upon the happening of any one of three contingencies; that, upon the death of the testator, M.'s interest in the legacy vested; and that it might thereafter have been transferred or levied upon and sold under judicial process against him; hence, upon his being adjudged a bankrupt, his interest vested in his trustee in bankruptcy. C. E. & J. C. Otis and How, Taylor & Mitchell, for appellant.

Morphy, Ewing & Bradford, for appellee Corcoran Thom.

Chas. N. Bell and Davis, Kellogg & Severance, for appellees Victor M. Watkins and others.

START, C. J.

The surviving trustees appointed and acting under the will of Mr. Amherst H. Wilder, deceased, brought this action in the district court of the court of Ramsey to secure a construction of the will, and directions in the premises. See Watkins v. Bigelow (Minn.) 100 N. W. 1104. Judgment was entered in the district court construing the will, whereby it was adjudged, with other matters, that such trustees pay to the defendant Corcoran Thom, as trustee in bankruptcy of the defendant Robert H. Merriam, the sum of $10,000, and interest, the amount of a legacy to the defendant Merriam. From this part of the judgment the defendant Merriam appealed, and the question to be here determined is whether the legacy of $10,000 should be paid to him personally, or to his trustee in bankruptcy for the benefit of his creditors. It is conceded that one or the other of them is entitled to the gift. The testator died November 10, 1894. He left, him surviving, his widow, Fanny S. Wilder, and his daughter, Cornelia Day Wilder, who subsequently became the wife of the defendant Dr. Appleby, and died always childless January 23, 1903. Mrs. Wilder died April 5, 1903. After the death of the testator, but before the death of either his widow or daughter, and on December 15, 1898, the defendant Robert H. Merriam was duly adjudged a bankrupt, and the defendant Corcoran Thom was duly appointed trustee of his estate in bankruptcy, and is still acting as such. The bankrupt received his discharge on October 1, 1899. Now, if Robert H. Merriam had at the date of his adjudication in bankruptcy any title, contingent or otherwise, to the legacy in question, which he might then by any means have transferred, or which might then have been levied upon and sold under judicial process against him, his right to the legacy vested in his trustee in bankruptcy, and the judgment must be affirmed. National Bankruptcy Act July 1, 1898, c. 541, § 70a, 30 Stat. 565 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3451]. Whether the bankrupt had any such title to the legacy at any time before the death of the daughter and widow of the testator depends upon the intention of the testator, which must be gathered from the language of his will, and the whole thereof. Yates v. Shern, 84 Minn. 161, 86 N. W. 1004.

The 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 15th, and 16th subdivisions of the will, when read and considered together, indicate quite clearly the testator's intention. The 14th and 15th subdivisions provide, in substance, in the event of the testator, his wife and daughter, being involved in some common disaster, whether at sea or otherwise, resulting in the death of all of them, in which accident he shall survive both of the others, and in which his daughter shall die childless, that practically the whole of his estate shall, after the payment of certain specific legacies made in the fourteenth subdivision, go to the Amherst H. Wilder Charity, according to the provisions of the fifteenth subdivision of the will. The fourteenth subdivision thereof gives, with others, the following legacy: ‘In the event aforesaid [that is, the death of the whole family in a common disaster], I give and bequeath unto my nephews, John W. Merriam and Robert H. Merriam, the two sons of my said sister Helen M. Merriam, the sum of ten thousand dollars each.’ The sixteenth subdivision of the will is in these words: ‘I again repeat that the whole of the fourteenth and fifteenth subdivisions of this will shall be void if either my said wife or my said child or any lawful issue of my said child shall survive me.’ The eighth subdivision, so far as here material, is this: When and as soon as my said child, Cornelia Day, shall attain the age of twenty-eight years the said trustees [the executors named in the will] shall divide the whole of the said rest and residue of my real estate and personal property then remaining in their hands into two equal...