Women's Homeopathic Hospital of Philadelphia, In re

• Decision Date: 03 June 1958
• Parties: In the Matter of WOMEN'S HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA. Appeals of PRESTON MATERNITY HOSPITAL AND ST. LUKE'S AND CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER OF PHILADELPHIA.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 292

142 A.2d 292

393 Pa. 313

In the Matter of WOMEN'S HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA.

Appeals of PRESTON MATERNITY HOSPITAL AND ST. LUKE'S AND

CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER OF PHILADELPHIA.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

June 3, 1958.

Philip Price, George J. Hauptfuhrer, Jr., Stanhope S. Browne, Barnes, Dechert, Price, Myers & Phoads, Philadelphia, for Preston Maternity Hospital.

William C. Bodine, Pepper, Bodine, Frick, Scheetz & Hamilton, Philadelphia, for Hahnemann Hospital.

John Mulford, Drinker, Biddle & Reath, Philadelphia, for Woman's Medical College.

Walter Biddle, Saul, Saul, Ewing, Remick & Saul, Edward M. David, Gerald K. Burns, Philadelphia, for St. Luke's & Childrens Medical Center.

MacCoy, Evans & Lewis, Richard W. Ledwith, Philadelphia, for Woman's Hospital.

Frank Rogers Donahue, Jr., Philadelphia, for American Foundation for Homoeopathy, Inc.

Irvin Stander, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for Commonwealth.

Benjamin M. Quigg, Jr., Philadelphia, for Women's Homoeopathic Hospital.

Before CHARLES ALVIN JONES, C. J., and BELL, MUSMANNO, ARNOLD, BENJAMIN R. JONES and COHEN, JJ.

CHARLES ALVIN JONES, Chief Justice.

A petition for the dissolution of the Women's Homoeopathic Hospital of Philadelphia was filed in the Court of Common Pleas No. 4 of Philadelphia County. As an incident of the corporation's termination, the court would be called upon to distribute the hospital's restricted charitable funds which represented an accumulation of some sixty separate gifts and aggregated approximately $350,000. The court appointed two co-masters for the purpose of marshalling the assets, taking testimony, hearing claims and recommending to the court an award cy pres of the hospital's funds subject to such award.

After extensive hearings, the masters concluded, and recommended accordingly, that the fund created by the will of William E. Sellers, aggregating, with accretions, approximately $29,000, should be awarded in equal shares to the Women's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania for the use of its hospital. The masters recommended that the remaining restricted funds be awarded in equal shares to Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital and Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania for the use of their respective hospitals. After argument on exceptions to the masters' report by disappointed claimants of the fund, the court entered decrees effectuating the recommendations of the masters. From these decrees, Preston Maternity Hospital and St. Luke's and Children's Medical Center of Philadelphia have appealed.

In reviewing a decree which gives effect to the cy pres doctrine, the scope of our inquiry is limited to the question whether the court below misunderstood or misapplied the law or committed a manifest abuse of discretion. Kensington Hospital for Women Case, 358 Pa. 458, 462-463, 58 A.2d 154, 3 A.L.R.2d 73; In re Glase's Estate, 384 Pa. 118, 120, 119 A.2d 294. In Commonwealth v. Pauline Home, 141 Pa. 537, 545-546, 21 A. 661, it was said with respect to a court's exercise of its cy pres power,--'The matter was very much in the discretion of the court below and we would not reverse, unless for a clear abuse of discretion.' Objective criteria for determining the operative presence of abused discretion are caontained in the following quotation from Echon v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 365 Pa. 529, 534, 76 A.2d 175, 178: 'An abuse of discretion is not merely an error of judgment, but if in reaching a conclusion the law is overridden or misapplied, or the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will, as shown by the evidence or the record, discretion is abused.' The record in this case fails to disclose the slightest indication of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will on the part of the court below, hence, our review is properly to be limited to determining whether the court below committed an error of law or exercised its broad discretion in the premises in an unreasonable manner.

The parties to these appeals are in agreement as to the law of the case. Their only difference is with respect to the manner in which the court below administered it. In Re Wilkey's Estate, 337 Pa. 129, 133, 10 A.2d 425, 427, Mr. Justice Stern, speaking for this court, characterized the following from the Restatement, Trusts, § 399, as being 'perhaps the best enunciation of the doctrine' of cy pres: 'If property is given in trust to be applied to a particular charitable purpose, and it is or becomes impossible or impracticable or illegal to carry out the particular purpose, and if the settlor manifested a more general intention to devote the property to charitable purposes, the trust will not fail but the court will direct the application of the property to some charitable purpose which falls within the general charitable intention of the settlor.' Long before the Restatement, the doctrine was expressed by this court to similar effect in City of Philadelphia v. Heirs of Girard, 45 Pa. 9, 27-28, as follows: 'The rule of equity on this subject seems to be clear, that when a definite charity is created, the failure of the particular mode in which it is to be effectuated does not destroy the charity, for equity will substitute another mode, so that the substantial intention shall not depend on the insufficiency of the formal intention.'

In this State, there is express statutory authority for applying the doctrine of cy pres. The presently applicable Act of April 26, 1855, P.L. 328, Section 10, as amended by the Act of May 23, 1895, P.L. 114, Section 1, 10 P.S. § 13 (superseded by the Act of April 24, 1947, P.L. 100, Section 10, 20 P.S. § 301.10) provides: 'That no disposition of property heretofore or hereafter made for any religious, charitable, literary or scientific use, shall fail for want of a trustee, or...