New York Life Insurance & Trust Co. v. Cary

On January 13, 1892, Jabez A. Bostwick, then a resident of the city of New York, executed and delivered to the New York Life Insurance & Trust Company a certain trust instrument, whereby he undertook to make provision for his daughter Nellie Bostwick Morrell, then the wife of Francis L. Morrell. The subject of the trust was personal property. The trustee was directed to hold the property during the lifetime of said Nellie Bostwick Morrell, paying the income to her so long as she lived, and at her death distributing and paying over the principal to her issue, if she left any. If, however, said Nellie Bostwick Morrell should die without leaving issue her surviving, the trust property was to revert to and be paid over to the creator of the trust or his estate. On November 8, 1890, the said Jabez A. Bostwick had made a will, whereby, after certain devises to his wife and his daughter Nellie, he directed that his residuary estate should be divided into three equal parts, each part to be held in trust for the benefit'-of his wife Helen C. Bostwick during her lifetime. Upon the death of the testator’s wife one part was to continue to be held by the trustee for the lifetime of Nellie Bostwick Morrell, one part to continue to be held for the lifetime of Fannie E. Bostwick, a daughter, and one part to continue to be held for the •lifetime of Albert C. Bostwick, a son, except that, when the latter

“The absolute ownership of personal property shall not be suspended by any limitation or condition for a longer period than during the continuance and until the termination of not more than two lives in being at the date of the instrument containing such limitation or condition, or if such instrument be a will, for not more than two lives in being at the death of the testator.”

The respondents argue, and the court below held with them, that the trust deed and the will are not to be read together, but separately, as two distinct and unrelated instruments, neither of which by itself created an unlawful suspension of the absolute ownership of the personal property in question. They insist that the fact that Nellie B. Morrell outlived her father, and then died without issue, was a mere “chance happening,” not contemplated when either instrument was executed, and having no bearing upon the validity of either instrument. Support for this position is sought to be found in Livingston v. N. Y. Life & Trust Company, 13 N. Y. Supp. 105 , 59 Hun, 622 . In that case two brothers named Livingston owned estates in expectancy in the reversion of a certain fund by a trustee for the benefit of their mother during the joint lives of herself and her husband. They executed a trust deed to the same trustee as then held the fund, expressing their desire to continue the trust and conveying to the trustee their expectant estates in the fund upon terms which, at least as to part of the fund, involved the suspension of the absolute ownership during the lives of both of them. The General Term of this department held that, inasmuch as ' rpectant estates are expressly made alienable, the brothers had a right to dispose as they did of their estates in expectancy, and that their power of disposition was not limited by the fact that the property would have been, when the ex

The trust deed, although expressed in the present tense, and accompanied by a delivery or deposit of the subject of the trust with the trustee, contained .the broadest possible powers of revocation, substitution, and control by the creator of the trust during his lifetime, reserving to him such dominion over the property as to lead this court and the Court of Appeals to hold (in a transfer tax case) that the gift to the trustee did not become effective and was not intended to become effective until the death of the creator of the trust. Matter of Bostwick, 38 App. Div. 223 , 56 N. Y. Supp. 495 ; Id., 160 N. Y. 489 , 55 N. E. 208 . The result is that there went into effect at the same moment a deed of trust and a will executed by the same person and affecting the same fund; the effect of the two instruments taken together being to tie up .the fund for a longer period than permitted by law. Under these circumstances, we consider that the two instruments must be read together as indicating the general scheme of the disposition of his estate intended by the testator. The fact that the deed and will were executed at different dates, or that the will was executed first, does not affect the question, since they both speak from the same moment, to wit, the death of Mr. Bostwick. Nor is it of consequence that it may have been probable', when the deed was executed, that Mrs. Morrell would have children. The rule for testing the validity or invalidity of a provision for the suspension of the power of alienation of real estate is not what has actually happened, or what was expected to happen, but what might have happened (Herzog v. Title Guarantee & Trust Company, 177 N. Y. 86 , 69 N. E. 283 , 67 L. R. A. 146 ), and the same rule applies to provisions suspending the absolute ownership of personal property. As the trust deed and will are to be read together as constituting parts of a single scheme of disposition, we must, as far as possible, give effect to both, as if both were contained in a single instrument. It was perfectly valid and lawful for Mr. Bostwick to so dispose of the fund that its absolute ownership would be suspended for two lives, and, as it was the clear purpose of his will that his widow should enjoy the whole income from his residuary estate during her lifetime, that intention will be carried out by sustaining the will so far as concerns the trust for the benefit of Mrs. Bostwick during her lifetime, declaring invalid only the subsequent trusts for the benefit of his children, and holding that so far as concerns the remainder in the trust fund, after the death of Mrs. Bostwick, the testator died intestate.

The judgment will be modified accordingly, and, as modified, affirmed, with costs in this court to all parties separately appearing payable out of the fund.

McLAUGHLIN and LAUGHLIN, JJ., concur.

I think the judgment rendered below is right, and should be affirmed without modification.

Whether the trust deed and the will be construed as one instrument or not, there is no violation of the statute as to one-third of the 1,000 shares of Standard Oil stock placed in trust by the deed for the daughter Nellie during her life. • By the will the residue of the testator’s estate is divided into three separate parts, and one part is given to the wife for life and on her death to Nellie for life, then to the latter’s issue or next of kin. Nellie having died without issue, the stock placed in trust for her, by the terms of the deed, passed to the testator’s estate, and swelled the residue. As to the one-third thus carved out for the wife and Nellie for the life of each, no more than two lives are involved. The fact that Nellie was given a life estate by the deed and another by the will after the wife should die did not constitute a provision for a third life. Nellie had only one life, and it is of no moment how many instruments she is mentioned in as taking a life estate in the same property, for she could take but one any way. Even if the deed and will be construed together, only the two lives of the wife and Nellie are involved in the first one-third part disposed of by the first subdivision of the fourth paragraph of the will. Nellie having died without issue, her next of kin, therefore, on the death of the wife, will take under the will of the testator, and not because of her own intestacy. I see no possible reason for saying that there is 'not a valid disposition under the will of this one-third part, and it should be held by the executors and trustees and finally distributed as the will provides. As to the other two-thirds, there is more room for question, but I am of the opinion that the will should be read alone, and that the trust deed should not be grafted upon it. The court below did not find, and from any facts disclosed could not have found, as a fact that the deed and will were executed in pursuance of one general scheme to evade the statute and to tie up personal property for more than two lives in being. The will was executed in 1890 and the deed in 1892. Standing alone, the deed is valid and the will is valid, and neither offends the statute. It is only by assuming that they must be read together, and that the property disposed of by both passed only at Mr. Bostwick’s death by virtue of the two instruments, that any offense against the statute can be found. It is true that Mr. Bostwick reserved power in the deed to terminate the trust and to change and supervise its investment; but he never did revoke it. The fact that he had the power to do so as long as he. lived did not make the trust effective only when.he should die. It was valid and effective when he created it, and continued to be so, unless he chose to destroy it. It was not given life by his death. That event only took away the power to destroy it. In a sense it became absolute only when the power to destroy it was gone; but, that power never having been exercised, its validity and the passing of the property and rights by it depended upon what was done at its execution and upon, the terms contained in it.

Counsel for appellants do not contend that Matter of Bostwick, 160 N. Y. 489 , 55 N.

I do not think the two instruments must or should be read together, and I therefore vote for an affirmance of the judgment.

PATTERSON, P. J., concurs.