Myers v. Pink

191 N.E.2d 659, 42 Ill. App. 2d 230, 7 A.L.R. 3d 619, 1963 Ill. App. LEXIS 586
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJuly 1, 1963
DocketGen. 49,174
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 191 N.E.2d 659 (Myers v. Pink) 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
Myers v. Pink, 191 N.E.2d 659, 42 Ill. App. 2d 230, 7 A.L.R. 3d 619, 1963 Ill. App. LEXIS 586 (Ill. Ct. App. 1963).

Opinion

MR. JUSTICE BURMAN

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from an order denying plaintiff-appellant’s motion for a temporary injunction restraining the executor of Ira M. Pink’s estate from voting 122,459 shares (about 24%) of the stock of the Englander Company, Inc., a Delaware corporation, at a meeting of the stockholders called for May 9, 1963, to elect directors, and from interfering with the right of the trustees to vote this stock. Plaintiff, David N. Myers, deceased’s brother-in-law, is one of the named trustees under the will. The defendants are deceased’s widow and executor of his estate, Libbie Pink, and the other cotrustee named in the will, The First National Bank of Chicago.

Ira M. Pink, president of Englander, died on December 5, 1961, and the parties to this action are in agreement that the issue herein involved must be determined by ascertaining Mr. Pink’s intention as expressed in his will. Mr. Pink’s will, admitted to probate in the Probate Court of Cook County on December 19, 1961, is a lengthy document and not all of its provisions are pertinent to this appeal.

After first bequeathing his personal effects and making a devise to the Ira M. Pink Foundation (the larger of the following amounts: 2% of the net amount of the estate as adjusted and determined for Federal Estate Tax purposes or $50,000), Mr. Pink devised the residue of the estate to two testamentary trusts. The first trust, Trust A, was established in an amount equal to the marital deduction allowable. Libbie Pink was named sole beneficiary to this trust for her life-, time and was given power of appointment at her death. The rest, residue and remainder of the estate was bequeathed to a second trust, Trust B. * Mrs. Pink was named life beneficiary to this trust also and upon her death the trustees were directed to establish separate trusts for each of the deceased’s two children. **

Mr. Pink named as cotrustees the two parties mentioned above and then, by article eight of the will, described their authority. In pertinent part, he provided:

Section 1. The Trustees are granted the following powers with respect to the various trusts herein created and the property and interests therein, at any time forming a part of such trusts (herein called the “trust assets”) to be exercised from time to time by the Trustees in a fiduciary capacity as the Trustees of the beneficiaries, except that the Trustees shall not have any power or discretion with respect to Trust A or its assets the possession of which would deprive my estate of any portion of the marital deduction allowable to my estate for Federal Estate Tax purposes, even though any particular power or discretion may not, by specific provision herein, be expressly made inapplicable to Trust A or its assets.
(f) To vote, either in person or by general or limited proxy, for any purposes (including for the election of a trustee or beneficiary as a director), or to refrain from voting any corporate securities or other trust having voting rights, and to enter into voting trusts and similar arrangements.

Mr. Pink then provided that a majority of the adults legally competent had the right to designate a corporate trustee to replace the corporate trustee acting under the will.

Testator then named his widow executor of his estate and by article fourteenth, described her powers, providing:

Section 1. During the period of the administration of my estate my Executor shall have all of the powers given to the Trustees with respect to the trusts and the trust assets and may join with the Trustees in the exercise of sueh powers.
Section 2. I authorize my Executor to sell, exchange, transfer and convey any and all of my property, real and personal, legal and equitable and wherever situated, at public or private sale, for such consideration (either for cash or on credit or partly for eash and partly for eredit) with sueh security or without security and on such terms and conditions as my Executor shall determine, ....
Section 3. I authorize my Executor to borrow money, to extend or renew any existing indebtedness, and to mortgage or pledge any and all of my property as security therefor; to collect, pay, contest, litigate, compromise or abandon claims and demands of and against my estate; and to postpone distribution of my estate pending the final determination of all its tax liabilities.
Section 6. My Executor may act in accordance with the provisions of this will without application or confirmation by any court and shall also have all powers which are now or may hereafter be granted by law, statute or rule of court.

On April 9, 1963, the Court of Ghancery of New Castle, Delaware, ordered a shareholders’ meeting of the Englander Company on May 9, 1963, for the purpose of electing a new board of directors. A special master was appointed to hold the meeting. The instant action was initiated to determine who had the right to vote the shares of stock held by the estate, still registered in the corporate books of Englander in the name of Ira M. Pink.

Plaintiff then sought to obtain an injunction preventing the executor from voting the stock. Although the Englander Company is a Delaware Corporation, it is for the Illinois courts to determine who shall vote the shares of stock held by the estate because Mr. Pink died a resident of Cook County, Illinois and his estate is being probated here.

After the Chancellor refused to issue the injunction, but before this appeal was orally argued, the stockholders’ meeting ordered by the Delaware court was held, presided over by a Master appointed by the Delaware court. By agreement among the parties two ballots were taken. On the first ballot Mrs. Pink, as Executor, voted the shares held by the estate and by voting them in conjunction with other shares held by herself and other proxies (including those of her two daughters), Mrs. Pink was able to elect four of the seven directors. Mr. Myers’ faction was able to elect the remaining three directors. The second ballot was then taken, this time on the assumption that the executor could not, by herself, vote the shares held by the estate. By this ballot Mr. Myers’ faction was able to elect four directors.

Plaintiff attempted to vote the shares held by the estate, on the second ballot, buit the cotrustee bank announced that it declined to vote the shares, and the Master sustained an objection to plaintiff’s voting the shares alone. In its brief the bank states that plaintiff filed this action without any consultation with it and when informed of the action, when suit was filed, it refused, to join as co-plaintiff on the ground that any attempt by the trustees to vote the stock would be “an unwarranted invasion of the Executor’s rights, contrary to the will of the testator.”

The order appealed from in the instant case, denying plaintiff’s request for a temporary injunction, stated, in pertinent part, as follows:

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191 N.E.2d 659, 42 Ill. App. 2d 230, 7 A.L.R. 3d 619, 1963 Ill. App. LEXIS 586, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/myers-v-pink-illappct-1963.