Buchanan v. Lloyd

1 A. 845, 64 Md. 306, 1885 Md. LEXIS 38
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedNovember 20, 1885
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 1 A. 845 (Buchanan v. Lloyd) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Buchanan v. Lloyd, 1 A. 845, 64 Md. 306, 1885 Md. LEXIS 38 (Md. 1885).

Opinion

Alvey, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case the only question presented is one of construction, and that is as to the effect of a certain clause in the codicil made to the will of the late Governor Edward Lloyd of this State.

The will was made in 1829, the codicil in 1834, and the testator died in the last mentioned year, leaving seven children, three sons and four daughters, to whom he devised and bequeathed, after making provision for his widow, a large and valuable estate, both real and personal. To the sons he gave their portions absolutely, but to the daughters their portions he gave in trust.

By the,, sixth clause of his will, the testator devised and bequeathed to his three sons, Edward, James M., and Daniel Lloyd, and the survivors or survivor of them, and the heirs, &c., of the survivor, for and during the life of his daughter, Elizabeth Tayloe Winder, “and no longer,” his farm in Talbot County, called Knightly, on which she then resided, and also the sum of $5000, in special trust and confidence that they should collect and receive the profits and interest thereof, and pay the same over to her, for her sole use and benefit, during her natural life, whose receipts in writing therefor should be a sufficient discharge to the said trustees, her coverture notwithstanding ; and from and after her death, he devised and bequeathed the said farm and money, before given in trust for the benefit of his said daughter, directly, and not in trust, to her child or children, if any, their heirs, &c., equally to be divided between them, share and share alike.

The provisions made by the testator in his will for his other daughters were on exactly similar trusts as that in behalf of Mrs. Winder, being for their respective lives only, with limitations over directly to their children. And after various bequests of his personal estate, the testator, by a residuary clause in his will, bequeathed all the residue of his personal estate to his three sons, equally to be divided between them, share and share alike.

[309]*309By the codicil, the testator, after ratifying and confirming the previous will in all its parts, except so far as the same should bs revoked or altered by the codicil, in making various alterations of and additions to the devises and bequests in the will contained, bequeathed to his two sons Edward and James M. Lloyd, “in special trust, agreeably ■with the provisions of my said will, the sum of $5000, (in addition to the $5000 devised in my said will:) also all the servants or slaves and other articles held by me under a bill of sale from Edward S. Winder, and all servants or slaves of mine which may be in the service or possession of said Edward S. Winder, or living on the farm called Knightly at the time of my death, for the use and benefit of my daughter, Elizabeth Tayloe Winder.”

Mrs. Winder is dead, and the appellants in this case are her children; and their contention is, that the $5000, and the proceeds of the sale of the slaves mentioned in the clause of the codicil just quoted, passed to them, upon the death of their mother, in precisely the same manner as did the property devised and bequeathed to them by the will; while on the part of the appellee it is contended, that the additional bequest of money and slaves made to Mrs. Winder by the codicil, was for her life only, without remainder to her children, and that, subject to the bequest for the life of Mrs. Winder, such property passed to the three sons of the testator under the residuary clause of the will. Which of these contentions is correct is the only question presented on this appeal.

The terms of the will and its various provisions are plain and explicit enough; but the codicil was not so skilfully drawn, and is greatly wanting in clear and unambiguous terms to express with clearness and precision the real meaning of the testator. By the will, the devise of the realty, and bequest of the money, to the trustees, were for the life of Mrs. Winder, and no longer, with power to collect the profits and interest, and to pay the same over [310]*310to her during her life. From and after her death, the property, both .real and money, was devised and bequeathed directly and absolutely to the children, without the intervention of trustees; the children taking the legal estate, and not, as in the case of the mother, a mere equitable estate in the property devised and bequeathed. From the death of the mother the trust, in respect to this particular property, terminated, exceptas to the resulting liability on the part of the trustees to account; and from that moment the children became entitled to receive the property as legal owners under the will. But by the codicil,'. the property intended as an additional gift to Mrs. Winder was bequeathed, not jointly to the three sons as trustees, but to two of them only, in special trust, agreeably with the provisions of my said will; ” that is to say, upon the same trust as that specified in the will, namely, to hold for the life of Mrs. Winder, and no longer; and to collect and pay over to her the income and profits during her life. No reference whatever is made to the children of Mrs. Winder in this bequest, nor is there any express limitation over of the property bequeathed by the codicil, after the death of Mrs. Winder; and the question is, whether, upon the will and codicil together, there is any such manifest intention, by implication or otherwise, that the property thus bequeathed by the codicil for the life of Mrs. Winder, should go to her children at her death, as in the preceding devise by the will, and thus withdraw the property from the operation of the residuary clause of the will? Of course, it is very clear that if there be no such limitation over in favor of the children, the property passed under the residuary clause; for it is too obvious to admit of serious question that Mrs. Winder did not take more than an equitable life estate in the property given her by this particular clause of the codicil.

It is certainly a well settled principle that the will and codicil are to be construed together as one instrument, and [311]*311are to be reconciled as far as practicable. But wbat is plainly given by the will is not to be revoked or withdrawn by doubtful or ambiguous expressions employed in the codicil. Here the effort is, by construction, and in total absence of plain words expressive of any such intention, to give an effect and operation to a clause in the codicil whereby the residuary clause of the will must be curtailed of the subject-matter of its operation. As said by Sir Wm. Grant in Holder vs. Howell, 8 Ves., 97, when considering a question somewhat of an analogous character to the present, we may have a very strong conjecture as to the objects and purposes of the testator in making the bequest in question, and as to what he may have supposed to be its effect and operation ; but the question is, whether upon that conjecture we can supply, with any degree of certainty, the limitation over to the children of Mrs. Winder, such as we find expressed in the devise contained in the will ? We have carefully considered the various provisions of both will and codicil, so far as they could in any way bear upon the construction of the clause of the codicil in question; and we are constrained to say, as was said by the learned Judge in the case just referred to, that whatever conjecture we may have, there are no materials in the codicil, or in the will and codicil together, of which we can predicate a limitation over to the children of Mrs.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1 A. 845, 64 Md. 306, 1885 Md. LEXIS 38, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buchanan-v-lloyd-md-1885.