Drake v. Drake

This action was brought for a construction of the ninth clause of the will of one James Drake, deceased. James Drake made his will in 1868, and died in 1871. He had no legitimate children, but had adopted as his daughter a person whom he called Mary Hopeton Drake, and of whom he was the reputed father.

James Drake left him surviving his three sisters, Mary M. Keese, Susan A. Drake and Sarah A. Lawrence, mentioned in said ninth clause of his will

Mary M. Keese died- in 1877, leaving no issue her surviving, and before the execution of the will of Mary Hopeton Drake hereafter mentioned. Susan A. Drake died in January, 1881, and before the execution of the said will of Mary Hopeton Drake, leaving her surviving seven children, Lawrence, Joseph T., John . J., Samuel, Charles, Benjamin and Mary Drake; Mary was after-wards married to Charles T. Stagg in 1884, and has no issue.

Mrs. Lawrence died in 1882 or 1883, after the execution of the will of Mary Hopeton Drake hereinafter mentioned.

She left her surviving three children, Mary K., Emily T. and Annie T. L.

Mary K. married Charles H. Black in 1864 or 1865, and at the time of the death of Mary Hopeton Drake, had four children, the

Benjamin Drake, the son of Susan A. Drake, married in June, 1873, and at the time of the death of Mary Hopeton Drake had two children, William W. Drake, born in April, 1874, and the defendant, Mary Hopeton Drake, born in 1877.

Emily T., the daughter of Sarah A. Lawrence, married in 1874 one Smith, and at the death of Mary Hopeton Drake had four children, Richard Lawrence, born in 1877, the defendants, Mary Hopeton, born in 1878, Ethelbert M. Smith, Jr., born in 1879, and Sarah L. Smith, bom in 1883.

Annie T. L., the daughter of Sarah A. Lawrence, married one Atterbury in 1870, and had at the time of the trial, in 1888, five children, Lawrence, fourteen or fifteen years old, Sarah, thirteen, the defendant Hopeton Drake Atterbury, seven, and Annie, five. Thus there were living at the death of James Drake in May, 1871, not only his three sisters, Mary M. Keese, Susan A. Drake and Sarah A. Lawrence, above mentioned, bnt also their children and one grand nephew, Charles Newbold Black, and one grand niece, Edith Lawrence Black, and at the time of the execution of the will all the above were living except Edith Lawrence Black.

Mary Hopeton Drake appears to have been about twenty-eight years of age in 1868 and she died in 1884.

James Drake, as has been already stated, died in 1871, having previously duly executed a will on the 22d of January, 1868, and a codicil thereto on the 9th day of August, 1869. . The contents of the codicil have no relevancy to the questions involved upon this appeal.

By his will James Drake, after making certain devises and bequests to his sisters and to two nephews and a niece, gave, devised and bequeathed to his adopted daughter, Mary Hopeton Drake, eleven houses and lots in the city of New York for and during the term of her natural life, and in case Mary Hopeton Drake left lawful issue her surviving, the testator gave and granted to her full power and authority to devise and appoint by will the said eleven houses and lots to all or any or either of such issue as she might in her discretion think proper, and in such shares and proportions as she should think proper, and in default of such appointment the testator devised said houses and lots above named to the lawful issue of Mary Hopeton Drake from and immediately after her death; if such issue was of equal degrees of consanguinity they were to take equally, if of unequal degrees, the issue of a deceased parent were to take the share the parent would have taken if living.

In the next clause of his will the testator provided as follows:

Ninth. In case of the death of the said Mary Hopeton Drake, without leaving lawful issue surviving at the time of her decease, then and in such case I give and devise to her full power and

Mary Hopeton Drake died in June, 1884, unmarried, and without leaving issue her surviving, leaving a will executed on June 14, 1881, and a codicil thereto executed June 21,1881. By this will and codicil she attempted to exercise the power of appointment given to her by the will of James Drake in respect to the houses and lots therein mentioned, and devised the same to James Drake Black, grandson of - Sarah A. Lawrence, a sister of James Drake ; to Mary Hopeton Smith, a granddaughter of Sarah A. Lawrence ; to Mary Hopeton Drake, granddaughter of Susan A. Drake, sister of James Drake; to Mary Keese Black and Annie T. L. Atterbury, daughters of said Sarah A. Lawrence, and to Charles Drake, Samuel Drake, John James Drake, Lawrence Drake and Benjamin Drake, sons of said Susan A. Drake.

All the devises, except those to Charles Drake and his brothers, subsequently mentioned, contained a provision that if any of the appointees died, Mary Hopeton Drake living, leaving issue, the issue should take the share the parent would have taken if living; if without issue, the portion of the property which the appointee or her issue would have taken if living should fall into and be disposed of as part of the testatrix’ residuary estate.

Her residuary estate she devised by her will to the above-mentioned James Drake Black, Mary Hopeton Drake and Mary Hope-ton Smith, which was changed by her codicil by adding as a devisee Hopeton Drake Atterbury, all of whom were grand-nephews and nieces to James Drake, deceased, and whose parents, children of James Drake’s sisters, were living at the death of Mary Hopeton Drake.

The question presented on this appeal is whether the learned judge below was right in holding that Mary Hopeton Drake had the power, under the power of appointment contained in James

The answer necessarily depends upon the construction which is placed upon the ninth clause of James Drake’s will hereinbefore set out at length.

This clause must be construed according to the testator’s intention, irrespective of any other consideration, if such intention can be ascertained after examining the will of the testator, his surroundings and the object which from these we may infer he sought to attain.

The ascertainment of this intention is not a matter of speculation or arbitrary conjecture, but must be arrived at having due regard to established rules by which particular words and expressions standing unexplained have obtained a definite meaning. If, however, it appears that particular words or expressions which have obtained a definite meaning in the law are used in a different sense, were intended to convey a different meaning, such intention must prevail, notwithstanding the interpretation which these words had previously received. Heneé, as no two wills are ever exactly alike, and as the circumstances which surround each testator vary, adjudications upon the construction of other wills have little weight except so far as they illustrate the general laws governing the construction of such instruments.

It is undoubtedly true that where there is a gift or devise by will after the determination of a life estate to A. B., and in case of his death before the death of the life-tenant, to his lawful issue, living at such death, if A. B. die before the determination of the life estate leaving issue and such issue at the death of the life tenant should consist of children and grandchildren whose parents were living the absence of circumstances showing a different intent, it would be held that the testator meant that the issue of A. B. should take by representation and not as a class.

This has become the accepted rule of interpretation because experience has shown that this construction in most instances best accords with the intention of the testator and that it is only under very peculiar circumstances that a testator desires that a parent and child shall take at the same time as belonging to the same class and that such circumstances inducing to such intent when it exists can almost always be found evidenced by the will itself or by the surroundings of the testator.

'That James Drake in the framing of the will in question understood the difference between issue taking by representation and as a class is amply evidenced by the will itself.

He devised to his sisters certain property during their lives and from and immediately after their deaths to their lawful issue to be divided among them equally in case they shall be of equal degrees of consanguinity and in case they should be of unequal degrees then the issue of each deceased parent to take the share which the parent of such issue would have been entitled to if he or she had then been surviving. He uses the same language in the limitations over after her death of the property given to Mary Hopeton Drake in the event of her leaving lawful issue her sur

When the testator desires the issue of his sisters to take in their representative capacity only he is equally careful in the employment of his language. By the latter part of the ninth clause of his will, in case of the death of Mary Hopeton Drake without issue, and without having made the appointment in said clause

Írovided for, the testator gives the houses and lots devised to Mary [opeton Drake during her life to his sisters and to their heirs and assigns from and after the death of Mary Hopeton Drake, and in case of the death of any or either of his said sisters during the lifetime of Mary Hopeton Drake, leaving lawful issue, then the said issue of each one so dying to take the share or part thereof which the parent of such issue would have taken if' she had survived. By this provision- the testator evidently purposely excludes the possibility of the issue of his sisters talcing this property as a class, restricting their right to take to théir representative capacity, making a marked distinction in the rights of the issue of his sisters in respect to the property of which Mary Hopeton Drake was a -life tenant, from those which he had conferred upon such issue in respect to the property in which his sisters had a life estate.

Was this difference in -these provisions accidental, or was it made in pursuance of an intelligent intention? We think that no one can read this will evidently drawn with so much care, and come to any other conclusion than that this difference was the result of intelligent action. He meant that although the issue of his sisters should not take in either case, their parents living, other than an expectant estate, their rights should be different, and he did not intend that there should be any uncertainty as to how either his sisters or their issue should take when the estate should devolve upon them, and hence he used plain and unequivocal language to define their rights.

And we think that the testator used equally apt words in that part of the ninth clause by which he confers the power of appointment upon Mary Hopeton Drake, the construction of which is the object of this action and confusion only arises when we attempt to construe as a devise that which was not, and was not intended to be a devise, but was merely the conferring a power of appointment among a designated class.

The provision is as follows: “ In the case of the death of the said Mary Hopeton Drake without leaving issue surviving at the time of her decease, then and in such case I give and devise to her full authority to devise or appoint by her last will and testa

The claim of the appellants is, and upon which is founded the whole of their argument, that, to quote the language used by them “ the fact that throughout the will in the general limitations already referred to in the other clauses as well as in the ninth clause substituting 1 issue ’ in the place of ‘ parent ’ the testator has clearly manifested an intention to permit 1 issue ’ to take only by way of representation and never concurrently with or to the exclusion of their living parent or ancestor.”

If there is one thing certain about this will it is that in designating the class from which Mary Hopeton Drake might select her .appointee or appointees under the power conferred by the ninth clause the doctrine of representation should not prevail, and that a ■child or children might be appointed to the. exclusion of its or their parent.

. In the other paragraphs of the will and the latter part of the ninth clause, where he desires children to take as representatives -of their parents the testator distinctly so directs, but in the part of the ninth clause under consideration the testator not only -does not use any language such as he had previously used and also subsequently employed but distinctly states that the issue of his sisters may be appointed although his sisters may be living.

In the other parts of the will the issue of his sisters took nothing but an estate in expectancy until their parents’ death. In the clause in question, by the appointment of Mary Hopeton Drake, the issue of the testator’s sisters could take under the appointment, such sisters being alive. This is distinctly what the testator says: Mary Hopeton Drake may appoint to all or any or either of his sisters or to all or any or either of the lawful issue ■of his said sisters. The power to appoint to the' lawful issue of his sisters is not dependent upon the death of any or all of the sisters, but may be made by the express language of the power to the issue, all the sisters being alive.

Upon this point there is no room for construction; it is plain ■that in respect to this power of appointment the testator did not wish the doctrine of representation to prevail. He had provided for it in the other portions of his will, but in the part under consideration it is apparent that he did not intend that a child should, in its candidacy for the favors of Mary Hopeton Drake, be dependent upon anything for success but upon its own claims.

His omission of all clauses looking to representation which he had so carefully inserted in the other parts of the will, and which he subsequently uses in the latter part of this very ninth clause when providing for the contingency of Mary Hopeton Drake not exercising the power of appointment, shows that the failure

In the clause in question the idea that the death of the parent should precede the possibility of issue benefiting thereunder is conspicuously absent, whereas in every other clause of the will this provision is unnecessarily insisted where such results were expected to follow. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the testator could have shown more clearly than he has done that the doctrine of representation should have no application.

If it should be claimed that the provision in respect to the death of his sisters at the end of the ninth clause qualifies all the provisions of that clause, a simple inspection thereof shows that such claim is entirely without foundation. This provision relates exclusively to the devise over in case of failure to appoint, and cannot relate to the provisions conferring the power of appointment because entirely disconnected therewith and hostile thereto.

The testator had completed his directions as to the power of appointment, and then proceeds to provide for the case of a failure to appoint, in which case, upon the death of Mary Hopeton Drake, he gives the said eleven houses and lots to his sisters and their heirs and assigns, and then adds the words that in case of the death of any or either of his sisters before Mary Hopeton Drake, the life tenant, leaving issue, such issue is to take the share the parent would have taken; that is, the sister, if she had survived, a provision utterly inapplicable to the provisions of the clause conferring the power of appointment, and evidently relating to the case of a failure to exercise this power.

It thus seems to us from the will itself that in respect to the appointees under the power in question the doctrine of representation was not intended by the testator to prevail, and this conclusion is greatly strengthened when we consider the surroundings of the testator and the objects he desired to attain. Mary Hope-ton Drake was, as has been already stated, believed by the testator’s relatives to be his illegitimate child. The testator had adopted her as his daughter, and she was not treated with the same cordiality by his sisters and their children as they manifested to each other.

The testator was very fond of this child, and such slights angered him, and upon one occasion he is reported to have said that he would make her a lady in spite of them, referring to his sisters and their children, and it was undoubtedly with a view of securing civility and kind treatment from his relatives that the testator limited the power of appointment in the manner he did. He intended to make it apparent to his sisters and their children that Mary Hopeton Drake could reward kindness, and punish incivility, and hence her power of appointment was only limited to his sisters or their blood in the descending line.

The judgment appealed from should be affirmed, with costs.

I concur. This is a case where the legal meaning given to technical words corresponds with the testator’s intention. Those words were used advisedly to express that intention. The free use of the disjunctive in the same connection favors this view. The power was plainly to operate upon an .area coextensive with parents, children, grandchildren, etc., concurrently ; in other words, upon the area of lawful issue in the full sense of descendants.

And for this extensive and all-embracing power within the limits of the testator’s blood, there was, as clearly pointed out by the presiding justice, adequate reason as matter of fact.

Bartlett, J., concurs.