Wesley Home, Inc. v. Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 04 April 1972
• Docket Number: No. 239,MERCANTILE-SAFE,239
• Citation: Wesley Home, Inc. v. Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 289 A.2d 337, 265 Md. 185 (Md. 1972)
• Parties: The WESLEY HOME, INC., et al. v.DEPOSIT AND TRUST COMPANY, Surviving Trustee u/w of Virginia Van Rensselaer Jacques, et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 185

265 Md. 185

289 A.2d 337

The WESLEY HOME, INC., et al. v.MERCANTILE-SAFE DEPOSIT AND TRUST COMPANY, Surviving Trusteeu/w of Virginia Van Rensselaer Jacques, et al.

No. 239.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 4, 1972.

Albert S. Barr, III and G. Van Velsor Wolf, Baltimore (Piper & Marbury, Baltimore, on the brief), for The Wesley Home, Inc. and the Home for Incurables of Baltimore City.

Carlyle Barton, Jr., Baltimore (Barrett W. Freedlander and Guy B. Brown, Baltimore, on the brief), for Mary Houston Dickey etc. and others.

J. Cookman Boyd, Jr., Baltimore (Frank M. Benson, Jr. and Rob Ross Hendrickson, Baltimore, on the brief), for The Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Baltimore Area and others.

No brief on behalf of other appellee.

Argued before HAMMOND, C. J., and McWILLIAMS, SMITH and DIGGES, JJ., and ROBERT F. SWEENEY, Special Judge.

SWEENEY, Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City (Perrott, J.), filed June 24, 1971, in an action instituted by Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Company, sole surviving trustee under the Will of Virginia Van Rensselaer Jacques, deceased.

The events culminating in the present appeal began on August 11, 1911, when Mrs. Jacques died leaving a Will that had been executed on February 11, 1911.The first four paragraphs of the Will contained certain specific bequests, not of interest here.The fifth paragraph created a trust, and it is the disposition of a portion of the residue of the trust fund which is not at issue.The pertinent portion of the Will is as follows:

'5.All the rest and residue of my estate, real, personal and mixed, and wheresoever situated, I give, devise and bequeath unto the 'Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Baltimore' and JAMES M. JACQUES and the survivor of them, their successor or successors in the trust, in special trust and confidence, nevertheless, to collect and receive the issue, rents and income thereof, and after paying the taxes and necessary expenses thereon, to divide the net income into six equal parts.

'Three-sixths or one-half of said net income I hereby direct to be paid unto my beloved husband, JAMES M. JACQUES for and during his natural life: One-sixth of said net income I direct to be paid to my daughter-in-law, MARY R. LLOYD, for and during her natural life: One-sixth of said net income, I direct to be paid unto my granddaughter, GERTRUDE LLOYD, for and during her natural life: One-sixth of said net income, I direct to be paid unto my granddaughter, CLARISE ALVA CRAWFORD, for and during her natural life.And from and after the death of any of the said JAMES M. JACQUES, MARY R. LLOYD, GERTRUDE LLOYD and CLARISE ALVA CRAWFORD, I hereby direct that after and as each of them shall die that the share of the income which would have been paid to the deceased, if living, shall be added to and become a part of the corpus or principal of said trust fund until said trust shall cease as hereinafter provided; and from and after the death of the survivor of all of said JAMES M. JACQUES, MARY R. LLOYD, GERTRUDE LLOYD and CLARISE ALVA CRAWFORD, the said trust shall cease and the corpus or principal of the trust fund, as then constituted, shall be divided by said Trustees into two equal parts; one part or one-half of said trust fund, I give, devise and bequeath unto 'The Hospital for the Women of Maryland of Baltimore City' and the 'City Hospital of Thomasville', Georgia, share and share alike.

'The other one part or one-half of said trust fund I gave, devise and bequeath unto 'The Anchorage of Baltimore City', 'The Home of the Aged of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Baltimore City' and the 'Home for Incurables of Baltimore City', share and share alike.'

The last surviving life tenant died on April 24, 1967, and the trust thereupon terminated.

No controversy exists at present pertaining to that part of the residue which was to be distributed between the two hospitals, and two of the three charities designated to take under the second part of the trust fund are clearly entitled to their share, and have been paid.A dispute exists, however, as to whether the other named charity, The Anchorage of Baltimore City(Anchorage), is entitled to receive its allotted share.The heirs at law of the testatrix allege that the Anchorage has, in fact, ceased to exist, and that an intestacy results as to its portion of the trust estate.They urge that the sum allotted to the Anchorage should, therefore, be paid to the executors of the Will, for the benefit of the heirs.The other two charities named to share in that portion of the trust: The Wesley Home, Inc., formerly The Home of the Aged of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Baltimore City(Wesley), and The Home for Incurables of Baltimore City, also Known as The Keswick Home (Keswick), join the heirs in urging that the share in question not be paid to the Anchorage, but argue that it should be divided between Wesley and Keswick.

The Anchorage asserts that it is still legally in being and entitled to receive its designated share, for transmission to the Young Men's Christian Association of the Greater Baltimore Area(YMCA) under the terms of an agreement to be discussed in further detail later herein.

To resolve this dispute, Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Company, surviving trustee under Mrs. Jacques' Will (Mercantile), filed its bill of complaint, seeking a determination as to which of the various claimants were entitled to take and in what amounts.By his Decree, the judge below found that the Anchorage and its successor-assignee, the YMCA, were entitled to receive the money in question.From that Decree the other claimants have taken this appeal.

In order to understand the background of the present dispute, a review of the history of the Anchorage would appear to be in order.

The Anchorage was incorporated on February 20, 1908 for the stated purpose of '. . . maintaining under Christian influence a boarding house and Home for Seamen while in port, and any other work for them that may grow out of it, so aid and uplift the men of the sea . . .'.The Charter was duly recorded among the chattel records of Baltimore City in LiberS.C.L. 48, folio 208.

Staffed by both paid and volunteer personnel, including the voluntary services of the testatrix on an occasional basis in the several years prior to her death, the work of the Anchorage was conducted in a building owned by the Corporation on Thames Street in Baltimore City.For approximately twenty years the organization functioned without major difficulty, although apparently with continuing financial pressures.The record reveals that the institution was, indeed, a haven for seamen and a source of great assistance to them.The principal activity of the Anchorage consisted of providing lodging and meals, at reasonable rates, to seamen in port, but it also extended into such other humane areas as visiting sick sailors in local hospitals; visiting and attempting to secure the release of seamen incarcerated in jail, and seeking employment for seamen by working in cooperation with shipping companies and labor unions.No charge was made for the latter services.

The organization was also active in attempting to locate missing seamen, and even conducted funeral services for those who died in port, burying them, when necessary, in a plot located in Parkwood Cemetery.

The record reveals the extent of the Anchorage's activities by indicating that 45,955 seamen were entertained in the Thames Street facility in 1928.

During the decade of the Twenties, faced with the imminent retirement of the Superintendent and with recurring financial problems, the Board of Directors of the Anchorage began negotiations with the YMCA towards the end that the YMCA might take over its operations.Tentative agreement was reached in 1929 and the YMCA assumed management of the Anchorage on July 1st of that year.A contract between the two organizations was finally approved under date of April 17, 1930 and a deed conveying the fee simple property of the Anchorage to the YMCA was executed on April 7, 1932.This deed is recorded in LiberS.C.L. 5294, Folio 492, and was subsequently approved by the Maryland Legislature.It granted to the YMCA:

'(A)ny and all other assets of every kind and description, whether real, personal or mixed, which The Anchorage of Baltimore City may hold title to or possess, or to which it may be entitled to under any existing will already probated, together with any gifts, legacies or devises which may be given or left to The Anchorage of Baltimore City by will or otherwise at any future time, it being the intention hereby that The Young Men's Christian Association of Baltimore shall, by this deed, acquire and hold title to all of the assets of The Anchorage of Baltimore City of which it is now seized or of which it now has possession or of which it shall at any time in the future be seized or have possession.'(Emphasis supplied)

From 1929 until 1955, the YMCA continued the operation of the Anchorage under the name of 'The Seamen's Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association'.It appears to be uncontroverted that during this quarter century the YMCA, in every substantial particular, carried on the work formerly conducted by the Anchorage management.Indeed, in 1941, under the auspices of the YMCA, lodgings were provided at the Seamen's Branch for 54,253 seamen, and an additional 151,887 used the premises for some purpose other than lodging.The activities of the Seamen's Branch continued at a high level throughout World War II, but it appears that the end of that war and a variety of other factors brought about a dwindling of the demand for the services of the facility.There was a great decline in the amount of American shipping after the war, and the nature of the Prot of Baltimore underwent considerable change in that period.Additionally, there was a substantial change in the...