Weeks v. Mansfield
| Decision Date | 31 July 1911 |
| Citation | 80 A. 784,84 Conn. 544 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | WEEKS et al. v. MANSFIELD et al. |
Case Reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; Ralph Wheeler, Judge.
Suit by Frank B. Weeks and others, trustees, against Burton Mansfield, administrator, and others for the construction of a testamentary trust. Will construed.
Alvan Waldo Hyde and John H. Light, Atty. Gen., for plaintiffs.
Charles F. Clarke, for defendant Town of Hamden.
PRENTICE, J. George Atwater of Hamden made his last will October 20, 1807, and died a short time thereafter. By his will he directed trustees thereunder to convey the residue of his estate after the termination of two lives, to the persons who at the time of such conveyance should constitute the board of trustees of the General Hospital for the Insane of the state of Connecticut, located at Middletown, in trust. the trust was expressed in the following language: "The said Trustees of The General Hospital for the Insane of the State of Connecticut shall reserve the whole amount received from my estate as a separate fund (to be known as the Atwater Fund) for the benefit of the insane poor of the state of Connecticut and shall have the right to appropriate and expend the annual income of the fund for the support of indigent insane persons, giving preference to indigent insane persons, if any such there may be, belonging to and having legal residence in my native town of Hamden, but the said trustees shall not appropriate or expend the principal of the fund."
January 26, 1886, this residue, then amounting to $23,975.Sl, was, pursuant to the terms of the will, turned over to the then trustees of said institution, and the trustees thereof for the time being have ever since continued to administer the trust created by the will. The name of the institution was in 1874 changed by substituting the word "Connecticut" for the word "General." Special Laws of 1874 (volume 7) p. 821. It will hereinafter, for brevity's sake, be referred to as the Connecticut Hospital, as will the similar institution, quite recently organized and located at Norwich, be designated as the Norwich Hospital. The trustees, by the advice of counsel, have declined to appropriate and expend any of the income of the fund for the support of paupers, whether residents of the town of Hamden, or of any other town, or for the support of insane persons confined as indigents in the Norwich Hospital, or in any other institution or place even though they were legal residents of Hamden. In making expenditures of the income they have confined it to the support of persons committed to the Connecticut Hospital, giving preference to those of its inmates who were legal residents of Hamden, and had been committed as indigents. In this way the greater portion of the income has been expended. But when some portion remained after all those of the class last described had been provided for, the trustees have from time to time appropriated from such balance sums for the support of indigent persons committed to said institution who had no legal residence in Hamden.
Claim is now made on behalf of that town that the language defining the trust requires of the trustees different action on their part in this, that if the entire income of the fund should not at any time be appropriated for the support of indigent residents of Hamden confined in the Connecticut Hospital, the balance should be applied to the support of insane indigent residents of that town confined in the Norwich Hospital or any other institution or place, and that, if such income should not then be exhausted, any balance should be appropriated and expended for the support of insane paupers belonging to and having a legal residence in Hamden.
In view of these claims this complaint has been brought to the superior court by the present trustees for its advice in answer to the five following questions, to wit:
It will be noted that four of these questions gather about a single general one—as to the right of the trustees to expend any part of the income of the fund in the support of insane paupers chargeable to the town of Hamden. The third and fourth on the list admit of a construction which manifestly was not intended. Thus construed, they reach out to situations which are so clearly beyond the range of present possibility that it is not conceivable that advice pertinent to them is desired. One thus construed is sufficiently broad to include a situation where the number of indigents confined in the Connecticut Hospital was insufficient to exhaust the income of the fund in their support; while the other would carry the situation to the further extent of assuming that the number of indigent insane, whether confined at Middletown, Norwich, or elsewhere, was insufficient to use up the income of this fund of less than $25,000. It is evident that the language of the two questions was used with reference to no such situation, but to define one where the support of indigent insane residents of Hamden confined in the Connecticut Hospital, in the one case, and there or elsewhere, in the other, did not exhaust the current income. Our advice to the superior court is given to the questions thus restricted in their scope. We are thus excused from determining the question of possible academic interest as to what the duty of the trustees would be if there were no other persons than paupers who could receive support from this income.
The term "pauper" has a distinct and well-defined meaning in our law. It is used to designate those persons whose support imposes a burden upon the public treasury. One may be ever so destitute of estate or ability to earn a livelihood, and yet not be a pauper. He may be cared for by the voluntary action of friends or relatives. The duty to care for him may by law be cast upon relatives. He becomes a member of the pauper class only when, other means of support failing, he becomes a public charge. This has long been so. General Statutes 1821, p. 369.
The term "Indigent," on the other hand, is one which in its common acceptation is used with...
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Shannon v. Eno
... ... select the particular members of the class to be benefited ... was necessarily implied; in Weeks v. Mansfield, 84 ... Conn. 544, 80 A. 784, we had before us a trust gift " ... for the support of ‘ indigent Insane persons" ... ’ and we ... ...
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Mitchell v. Reeves
... ... Church, 116 Conn. 347, 352, 164 A. 910 ... The ... following cases are instances of the application of this ... principle. In Weeks v. Mansfield, 84 Conn. 544, 80 ... A. 784, a gift to the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane, ... the income to be expended for the support of ... ...
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Massachusetts Gen. Hosp. v. Inhabitants of Belmont
...to other imperative obligations resting upon them, to contribute any substantial amount to their support in the asylum. Weeks v. Mansfield, 84 Conn. 544, 80 Atl. 784;In re Hybart, 119 N. C. 359, 25 S. E. 963. The other parts of the statute present no insuperable difficulty in construction. ......
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State v. DeJoseph
...counsel at public expense because he was indigent. The word 'indigent' has been thus defined by our Supreme Court in Weeks v. Mansfield, 84 Conn. 544, 549, 80 A. 784, 786: 'The term 'indigent,' on the other hand (as distinguished from 'pauper'), is one which in its common acceptation is use......