First National Trust & Savings Bank v. Superior Court

121 P.2d 729, 19 Cal. 2d 409, 1942 Cal. LEXIS 374
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 4, 1942
DocketS. F. No. 16651
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 121 P.2d 729 (First National Trust & Savings Bank v. Superior Court) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
First National Trust & Savings Bank v. Superior Court, 121 P.2d 729, 19 Cal. 2d 409, 1942 Cal. LEXIS 374 (Cal. 1942).

Opinions

SHENK, J. —

The petitioner seeks the writ of prohibition to restrain the respondent superior court from exercising jurisdiction in a pending action until it has ordered the presence of parties claimed to be indispensable to a complete determination of the controversy. (See section 389, Code of Civil Procedure.) This court issued the alternative writ. The matter is submitted on the petition and the respondent’s demurrer and answer.

The pleadings herein show that on March 15, 1941, Sallyneil B. Wilson commenced an action in the Superior Court in Los Angeles County naming The First National Trust and Savings Bank of San Diego, petitioner herein, as the sole defendant. The plaintiff in that action sought to recover from the defendant, trustee of an express trust, one-half of the income from the trust estate under an amendment to the declaration of trust whereby the plaintiff was made a beneficiary of the trust. The following are the facts alleged in the complaint in that action :

On August 16, 1929, Edith W. Grose executed a declaration of trust covering real and personal property, naming The First National Trust and Savings Bank of San Diego as trustee to collect the income therefrom and pay the same to Juliet Guthrie Wilson during her lifetime, and upon her death to her surviving issue. Juliet Guthrie Wilson died in December, 1929, and was survived by her son, F. Guthrie Wilson, and her daughter, Edith W. Grose. The trustee thereupon paid the income from the trust estate to the two surviving children in equal shares.

The trust instrument provided that the trustor should have the right, upon thirty days’ written notice to the trustee, to revoke the trust in whole or in part and to alter or amend the same by a memorandum in writing delivered to the trustee, provided the amendment be accepted by the trustee. On [411]*411June 30, 1933, the trustor, Edith W. Grose, executed and delivered to the trustee an amendment of the trust declaration as follows: “F. Guthrie Wilson, my brother, is about to marry one Sallyneil Braden. In the event said marriage is consummated, and in case said Sallyneil Braden survives F. Guthrie Wilson, then in that event, I direct the trustee shall pay to her for so long as she may live, all of the income to which the said F. Guthrie Wilson would have been entitled had he survived.”

The trustee accepted the amendment. On July 29, 1933, Sallyneil Braden married F. Guthrie Wilson. On December 14, 1940, F. Guthrie Wilson died. The trustee refused to recognize the validity of the foregoing amendment to the trust declaration and the plaintiff brought the action for the purpose of establishing herself as beneficiary of one-half of the income of the trust, that being the portion which F. Guthrie Wilson would have received had he lived. The plaintiff also sought an accounting and a declaration of the rights of the parties.

It was also alleged in the complaint that F. Guthrie Wilson and Edith W. Grose were the sole issue of said Juliet Guthrie Wilson and therefore became the sole beneficiaries of the trust. The original trust declaration, annexed as an exhibit to the complaint, contained the following provisions with respect to the payment of the net income derived from the estate after the death of the first named beneficiary, Juliet Guthrie Wilson:

“Upon the death of Juliet Guthrie Wilson, the trustee shall pay the net income ... to the issue of Juliet Guthrie Wilson living at each income date until the termination of this trust as hereinafter provided.
“Upon the death of the last survivor of the Trustor, Juliet Guthrie Wilson, F. Guthrie Wilson, brother of the Trustor, and Janet C. Stanley and Catherine C. Grose, daughters of the Trustor, this trust shall cease and determine, and thereupon the Trustee shall transfer, pay over, convey and deliver the trust estate and any accumulations thereof then in its hands, to the issue of Juliet Guthrie Wilson then living, per stirpes and not per capita.
“In case Henry T. Stanley, Jr., Grandchild of the Trustor, shall not have attained the age of thirty (30) years at the time of the termination of this trust, his share of the trust [412]*412estate shall vest but possession thereof shall be postponed” until he shall have attained the age of thirty years. Similar provisions were made respecting the share of “any other beneficiary, being the issue of Juliet Guthrie Wilson, under the age of thirty (30) years at the time of the termination of this trust.”

The defendant trustee filed an answer in said action alleging that in fact Juliet Guthrie Wilson was the trustor, and that Edith W. Grose was not the owner of the trust property nor the trustor, and denying that the plaintiff was a beneficiary of the trust. In the answer it was admitted that the amendment of June 30, 1933, was executed by Edith W. Grose, but it was alleged that Edith W. Grose, purporting to act as trustor, on April 22, 1935, executed another instrument amending the trust declaration, accepted by the trustee, which was a substitute for the amendment of June 30, 1933, and provided that Sallyneil B. Wilson, should she survive F. Guthrie Wilson, should receive two-thirds of the income to which F. Guthrie Wilson would have been entitled, unless she became divorced from her husband or should remarry, and but one-third of such income upon termination of the trust, unless she had been divorced or had remarried.

On the trial the defendant in the action objected to the introduction of evidence on the ground that the court did not have jurisdiction to render judgment therein without the presence of Edith W. Grose, Janet C. Stanley, Catherine C. Grose and Henry T. Stanley, Jr., who were named in the original trust instrument. On July 22, 1941, the trial court rendered an interlocutory judgment whereby it decreed that the original trust instrument was duly amended by the writing dated June 30, 1933, but that the instrument of April 22, 1935, was ineffective as a modification of said amendment and of said trust instrument and was therefore void; that upon the death of Juliet Guthrie Wilson, F. Guthrie Wilson became one of the two sole surviving beneficiaries of the trust and was entitled to one-half the income therefrom so long as he lived, and that upon his death the plaintiff became entitled to the same share of the income. The court ordered the trustee to render an accounting and report of its administration under oath. It also ordered that Edith W. Grose, the trustor under the trust instrument, and the only other beneficiary thereunder, be made a party to the action “for the purpose of the accounting”; further, “that she be [413]*413served forthwith with a copy of this judgment; that she, as well as the plaintiff, be served by the defendant trustee with a copy of the account . . . that said Edith W. Crose, as well as the plaintiff, serve and file herein her objections and exceptions to such account and the same be set for hearing and determination, upon motion of any of the three parties to such accounting. . . . That plaintiff have a personal judgment, with costs, against the defendant, for any and all” income found to be due and payable to the plaintiff after the court “shall have passed upon said account and rendered its decision thereon,” and that said Edith W. Crose should have a personal judgment against the defendant trustee for any sums found to be due her as a result of such accounting.

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Bluebook (online)
121 P.2d 729, 19 Cal. 2d 409, 1942 Cal. LEXIS 374, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-national-trust-savings-bank-v-superior-court-cal-1942.