Lee v. Albro

178 P. 784, 91 Or. 211, 1919 Ore. LEXIS 30
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 18, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 178 P. 784 (Lee v. Albro) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lee v. Albro, 178 P. 784, 91 Or. 211, 1919 Ore. LEXIS 30 (Or. 1919).

Opinion

BEAN, J.

The substance of the complaint is as follows:

That Stephen Mead died about December 9, 1875, in the State of Connecticut; and at the time of his death he was a citizen of and had his domicile in that state; that he left a last will and codicil duly executed, copies of which are annexed to the complaint; that the will and codicil were duly admitted to probate by the Court of Probate of Connecticut on April 5,1876; that the will and codicil were duly admitted to probate by the county court of Multnomah County, State of Oregon, on March 25, 1893, and duly recorded; that all of the persons named in the will and codicil as trustees of the trust therein created duly accepted the office of trustee and duly qualified and acted as trustees, except Joseph M. French, who on May 20,1876, declined to accept the appointment as trustee; and that the other persons continued to act as such trustee down to July 27,1892, when William W. Mead, the youngest of the testator’s then living children, became of age, and that thereafter and on or about October 2, 1893, the trustees for thémselves and on behalf of their cotrustee, William S. Ladd, who had died, duly trans[215]*215ferred all their title as such trustees in and to the trust estate to the children of the testator as succeeding trustees, who were by the will designated and appointed as trustees of the trust from and after the date when the youngest living child should reach the age of twenty-one years, to wit: Anna L. Lee, Joshua Roberts Mead, Stella B. Mead and William W. Mead, who at the time constituted all of the children of the testator; that the deed of conveyance was duly recorded in the office of the county clerk of Multnomah County, Oregon, on September 27, 1894, in Book 216 of Deeds, at page 255; that the executors named in the will duly administered the estate in the Probate Court of Connecticut and duly discharged all the duties required of them under the terms of the will and codicil under the laws of that state, and that they were by the order and decree of the court duly discharged from all liability as executors of the will, but not as trustees under the trust created in and by the will and codicil.

That the testator at the time of his death was the owner of real estate situated in the State of California; that the testator at the time of his death also owned an interest in the copartnership of Ladd & Til-ton of Portland, Oregon, which was disposed of by the trustees, and they ultimately invested the trust funds derived thereby in certain real estate in the City of Portland, Oregon, all of which real estate, except that portion of Mead’s Addition which was sold, is described in the complaint; that all of the deeds of conveyance of the real estate were taken in the names of the trustees, to wit, in the names of William S. Ladd, G-ranville B. Gillman, David M. French and Charles E. Tilton, and the testator never at any time held the legal title to any of the real estate-; that a portion of [216]*216the real estate was sold; that a part of the before mentioned real estate is described as follows, to wit: Lots three (3) and four (4), Block one hundred seventy-five (175), of the City of Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, and is situated on the northwest corner of Washington and Fifth streets in the City of Portland; that the property has been improved by the erection of a 7-story building thereon by the trustees at a cost of $195,000; and that the lots and building have been leased by the trustees for a term of fifteen years and two months from November 1, 1914; that the property known as the Mead sixteen (16) acre tract by reason of improvements made by tenants has greatly increased the net revenue derived therefrom; during the year 1908, it was the sum of $1,989.30, and that the net revenue has increased until during the year 1916 the same was $3,928.12, and the net revenue was thereby increased more than 33%. That other parcels of the real estate which are described are improved but little and the net revenue therefrom has decreased largely, while on some parcels the net revenue therefrom has increased slightly; that the total net revenue derived from all of the described real estate, except the property situated on the northwest corner of Fifth and Washington Streets, was during the year 1908 about the sum of $28,991.44. It increased in 1909 and during 1910 it reached the highest point of $36,372.56, but that ever since 1910 the net revenue has been decreasing, and after the year 1913 began to decrease very rapidly, and that the net revenue during the year 1916 was $86.47.

That the best interests of all parties concerned, both from the standpoint of securing revenue from the property, and also from the standpoint of conserving the corpus of the estate for those who are to take the [217]*217same at the termination of the trust, require that some of the property be improved, some of it sold and some of it leased on long time leases; that owing to the development of the City of Portland, in which all of the real estate is located, the situation of the property has undergone changes in permanent value and future possibilities of value since the same was purchased by the trustees under the last will and testament of Stephen Mead, deceased; that some of it is not sufficiently improved in proportion to its economic value; that some of the improvements have become obsolete and impair the income producing power of the property on which they are located, which property could be made to produce a much higher revenue if improved in harmony with its location and business possibilities; that some of the improvements are old and the depreciation is great and rapidly increasing, and that the need of constant repair to keep the same in condition to produce any revenue at all is so great as to seriously impair its income producing power, and that this condition is certain to become aggravated from year to year, and that on account of business and other economic conditions, some of the real estate is destined to decrease in value, and that wise business judgment requires that the same be exchanged for other property or sold and the money invested in other property; that real estate conditions in the City of Portland are such-at the present time that more advantageous changes of this kind can be made now and in the "near future than at a later period when opportunities for paying investments in real estate would not be so numerous as at present; that the best interests of all parties concerned require that the trustees should be given the broad power of absolute owners in dealing with the property as a whole, subject to [218]*218the orders and decrees of the court, keeping in view at all times the rights of those who are to take the property at the termination of the trust to have the corpus of the property preserved; that it is impossible for'the trustees in advance of an interlocutory decree, giving them full authority to • deal with the property with the broad power of absolute owners, subject, however, to the approval of the court, to enter upon negotiations for the sale, exchange, leasing or improving of any of the property; that unless the trustees are given such broad powers with respect to the property, the trust estate as a whole will suffer great loss in its power to produce income and the corpus of the trust estate will be seriously impaired; that the only descendants of the testator now living are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all of whom are defendants in this suit. The complaint gives their names, ages and places of residence.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
178 P. 784, 91 Or. 211, 1919 Ore. LEXIS 30, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lee-v-albro-or-1919.