Home for Destitute Crippled Children v. Boomer

51 N.E.2d 830, 320 Ill. App. 541, 1943 Ill. App. LEXIS 660
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 17, 1943
DocketGen. No. 42,614
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 51 N.E.2d 830 (Home for Destitute Crippled Children v. Boomer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Home for Destitute Crippled Children v. Boomer, 51 N.E.2d 830, 320 Ill. App. 541, 1943 Ill. App. LEXIS 660 (Ill. Ct. App. 1943).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Burke

delivered the opinion of the court.

In an amended and supplemental complaint filed in the superior court of Cook county on March 21, 1938, the Home for Destitute Crippled Children, a corporation, and Robert P. Carr, as trustee, plaintiffs, sought to compel Dr. Paul Chamberlain Boomer and Laura Boomer to deliver to the trustees certain stock certificates constituting the corpus of the trust as described in the trust instrument dated August 27, 1924, from Boomer as grantor, and for other incidental relief. Dr. Boomer and Ms wife Lanra Boomer defended on the principal ground that there had never been any delivery of the stock certificates and that the trust instrument, in and of itself, was not sufficient to create a trust. The master and chancellor held that the trust instrument was sufficient to create a trust without the physical delivery of the certificates, and a decree was entered on February 14,1940 to that effect, directing that the certificates be delivered as prayed. This court affirmed the decree, holding that the physical delivery of the certificates was not necessary, and further that if such delivery were necessary, there had been delivery at a date subsequent to the execution of the trust instrument. The case is reported as Home for Destitute Crippled Children v. Boomer, 308 Ill. App. 170. A petition for leave to appeal was denied by the Supreme Court of Illinois. Paragraphs J, K and L of the decree of February 14, 1940 read:

“J. Defendants Paul Chamberlain Boomer and Laura Boomer shall pay the costs of this cause, and the court hereby retains jurisdiction of tMs cause for the purpose of entering herein a subsequent order or decree touching the fixing of master’s fees herein and the taxing of such fees and costs.
“K. The court hereby retains jurisdiction of this cause for the purpose of entering a subsequent order or decree touching the allowance and payment out of the corpus of the said trust of plaintiffs’ costs and expenses of suit and solicitors’ fees and of the reasonable fees of The First National Bank of Chicago as custodian of the said certificates under order of this court.
“L. The court hereby retains jurisdiction of this cause as to matters adjudicated hereby, and leave is hereby granted to all parties hereto and to any successor trustee or trustees under the said trust instrument to apply to this court hereafter for such other and further relief and instructions in the premises, as they or any of them may deem necessary. The service of a copy of any petition filed pursuant to this paragraph, or paragraph J or K above upon the parties defendant or plaintiff herein personally, or upon their respective solicitors of record shall be sufficient to give this court jurisdiction over the persons so served with respect to the subject matter of such petition.”

On September 19, 1941, after the case came back to the trial court, plaintiffs filed a petition for an order relating to the distribution of funds. On October 21, 1941 an order was entered pursuant to an agreement of the parties, substituting the First National Bank of Chicago as sole trustee. On November 21, 1941 plaintiffs filed another petition for an order respecting the payment of accumulated dividends to the trustee, and for the allowance of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and expenses of suit, including reimbursement to plaintiffs for certain expenses and also for $1,947.10 which they had paid to Master John J. Kelly, to whom the original reference had been made. Plaintiffs sought by these petitions to have the costs taxed against the defendants Boomer, and the attorneys’ fees and expenses paid out of the income of the trust rather than out of the principal. Since Boomer is entitled to receive the net income, of the trust estate during his lifetime, he strenuously resisted plaintiffs’ efforts in this respect. The chancellor referred the matter to Master Herbert C. Paschen, who filed his report recommending the taxing of costs against defendants and the allowance to plaintiffs of their expenses incurred, including an allowance for attorneys’ fees of $30,000, but recommending, with certain minor exceptions, that such sums be paid out of the corpus of the trust rather than out of the income of the trust estate. Both sides filed exceptions to the master’s report. The chancellor and masters who passed on the ease in chief are not the same as those who passed on the reserved issues. On November 20, 1942 tbe chancellor entered a supplemental decree, which, in substance, sustained the master’s report in all respects except that it directed that the amounts allowed to plaintiffs as attorneys’ fees and expenses be paid out of the income rather than the principal of the trust. From this supplemental decree the Boomers have appealed.

Plaintiffs’ (appellees) theory of the case is that in litigation of this type, brought by a trustee to recover possession of the trust res, for enforcement of the terms of the trust and for an accounting, the plaintiff is not required to bear the expense out of his own pocket, but is entitled to reimbursement out of the trust estate; that where, as in this case, the suit and expense thereof have been necessitated by the wrongful conduct of the income beneficiary in denying the existence of the trust and refusing to deliver the res to the trustee, the plaintiffs’ reimbursement should come out of the income rather than principal; that the trust indenture, under which the plaintiff Carr was acting as trustee, contains in paragraph 8 an express provision that all legal charges and expenses incurred by the trustees shall be paid out of income; and that the amounts allowed by the chancellor as reimbursement were reasonable and proper. Defendants’ (appellants) theory of the case is that plaintiffs, because of their secretive conduct in paying the “excessive fees of Master Kelly” in violation of the laws and rules of court and without notice to defendants and without an order of court therefor, are not in court with clean hands and are entitled to recover nothing in this proceeding; that the fees of Master Kelly, so improperly paid, are excessive under all of the decisions of the courts of review in this State; that the fees of Master Paschen, as fixed by the decree, are excessive in the amount of $118.14; that the item of $331.90 for the bank as custodian, the expense item of $868.74 for plaintiffs, the item of $30,000 for plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees, and the sum of $355 for the bank’s attorney and appearance fee, all charged against Dr. Boomer’s income, cannot stand, for the additional reason that there is neither contract nor statute to support them; and that the decree of February 14,1940, being incomplete, and plaintiffs having come into a court of equity seeking its enforcement, are entitled to no relief until they have shown that such decree is just and equitable, and that their conduct in respect thereto has been above legal reproach, which the plaintiffs have utterly failed to do, and that a court of equity, in the light of the record, cannot enforce the decree of February 14, 1940 now or at any other time under the law of this and other States.

It appears that all the costs of the case which had been taxed against him up to the date of the supplemental decree of November 20, 1942, have been paid by Dr. Boomer. Master Kelly’s fees had never been taxed up to the date of the supplemental decree, but were actually paid on November 3, 1939 by the Home.

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Bluebook (online)
51 N.E.2d 830, 320 Ill. App. 541, 1943 Ill. App. LEXIS 660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/home-for-destitute-crippled-children-v-boomer-illappct-1943.