Porotto v. Fiduciary Trust Co.

75 N.E.2d 17, 321 Mass. 638, 1947 Mass. LEXIS 694
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedSeptember 19, 1947
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 75 N.E.2d 17 (Porotto v. Fiduciary Trust Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Porotto v. Fiduciary Trust Co., 75 N.E.2d 17, 321 Mass. 638, 1947 Mass. LEXIS 694 (Mass. 1947).

Opinion

Qua, C.J.

This is a companion case with Fiduciary Trust Co. v. Mishou, also decided this day. Most of the pertinent facts appear in that ease and will not be restated here. That case was a petition by the trustee under the will of Martha S. Parker for instructions primarily as to the distribution [640]*640of the principal of the trust. This case relates primarily to past distributions of income of the trust and particularly to past distributions of income under the provision of Mrs. Parker’s will whereby upon the decease of a child without issue (or the failure of issue of a child) the portion of income previously paid to him or her should go to augment the income payable to any child who survived and to the issue of any deceased child.

After the death without issue of Charles T. Parker in 1912, he being the first to die of Mrs. Parker’s three children, the trustees, apparently proceeding upon the theory that all the limitations of Mrs. Parker’s will were valid, divided that portion of the income which Charles had been receiving equally between the two surviving children, James and Mary, and after James died in 1930, the entire income was paid to Mary. Seventeen trustee’s accounts were allowed showing these payments. The petitioner in this case is the executrix of the will of Charles. It is her contention that the provisions of Mrs. Parker’s will by which, upon the death of a child without issue (or upon failure of issue), income which that child had been receiving would be shifted to another child or to the issue of a deceased child were invalid as to income derived from property traceable from the trust under the marriage settlement of 1851 because in violation of the rule against perpetuities; that the income involved in these augmenting limitations, in so far as derived from such property, should have gone to the three children and their estates under the will of their father, Richard T. Parker, in the proportions of three twentieths to the estate of Charles, eleven twentieths to James and after his decease to his estate, and six twentieths to Mary, the last child to die. The present petition has for its object the revocation of the decrees allowing the trustee’s accounts in order that the necessary corrections may be made, and that the trustee may be ordered to pay out of the fund in its hands a sum which, it is contended, these corrections will show has been paid to Mary at the expense of the estate of Charles. The judge entered a decree dismissing the petition.

In our opinion the position of the petitioner is to a great [641]*641extent correct. We think that the hmitations in Mrs. Parker’s will above mentioned, providing for augmentation of income, were contingent interests which were not vested at Mrs. Parker’s death and which might not vest until more than twenty-one years after any life or lives in being in 1851, when Mrs. Parker’s power of appointment was created. These interests were contingent not only upon the person or persons who might take them being “living” persons at the times when they might take but also upon the death of a child without issue or the failure of issue of a child. Who the takers would be could not be ascertained until the events occurred. Dunn v. Sargent, 101 Mass. 336. Shaw v. Eckley, 169 Mass. 119. Gardiner v. Savage, 182 Mass. 521, 524. Alexander v. McPeck, 189 Mass. 34, 39-43. Clarke v. Fay, 205 Mass. 228. Gardiner v. Everett, 240 Mass. 536, 539. Springfield Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Ireland, 268 Mass. 62, 66. Whiteside v. Merchants National Bank, 284 Mass. 165, 174. We cannot accept the opposing contention that Mrs. Parker’s children took vested estates in the income as joint tenants. In a joint tenancy the survivor takes the whole, but Mrs. Parker’s will provided that in some circumstances issue and not the surviving children should take. Neither can we accept the contention that the children had at Mrs. Parker’s death vested interests in the augmentation of income the enjoyment of which was merely postponable in case issue should intervene. This construction seems to us strained and inconsistent with the words used. We think that the shifting gifts of income upon the death of a child (or failure of his issue) were limitations over; that the income so limited might go to other children of Mrs. Parker or might go to the issue of the deceased child or might go to issue of a child who had previously deceased; and that the future interests in the income were contingent. In re Legh’s Settlement Trusts, [1938] 1 Ch. 39. Whitby v. Von Luedecke, [1906] 1 Ch. 783.

It follows that the limitations over of income upon the deaths of Mrs. Parker’s children (or the failure of their issue) were invalid as to that proportion of such income as [642]*642was derived from property which came from the 1851 trust, and that to the extent of the invalid limitations that income devolved by resulting trust and through the will of Richard T. Parker upon the three children in the same manner in which we have held in the companion case of Fiduciary Trust Co. v. Mishou that principal subject to invalid disposition devolved upon the three children.

¿But it is argued that the decrees allowing the trustee’s accounts cannot now be revoked because the items of all the accounts (except one) that were allowed while G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 206, § 24, was in force before it was changed by St. 1938, c. 154, § 1, were “finally determined and adjudicated,” and the accounts that were allowed after the change in the statute, according to the terms of the statute as changed, “shall not be impeached except for fraud or manifest error.” See New England Trust Co. v. Paine, 317 Mass. 542, 544-545. But § 24 contained a provision that such notice as the court might order that an account was to be adjudicated must be given “to all parties,” as the statute read before the change, or “to all persons interested,” as it read after the change. Citations issued on accounts one to five, inclusive, required notice by delivery or by publication and mailing “to all known persons interested.” The citations on accounts six to seventeen, inclusive, required notice by delivery or by publication and mailing “to all persons interested.” The returns upon all the citations recited that notice was given by publication and mailing. In fact no notices on accounts six to seventeen, inclusive, were mailed to the petitioner. She was a person interested. Notice should have been mailed to her. A positive requirement of G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 206, § 24, both before and after it was changed by the act of 1938, was not observed as to accounts six to seventeen, inclusive. It follows that as to the petitioner these accounts were not “finally'determined and adjudicated” and the provision of the statute as changed that after allowance accounts should “not be impeached except for fraud or manifest error” did not apply to them.

No doubt the returns upon the citations were prima facie [643]*643evidence that proper service had been made and could be accepted as such by the Probate Court in the first instance. But when it now. appears upon a petition for revocation that the statutory basis for a final adjudication as to this petitioner had never in fact been laid, as to accounts six to seventeen, inclusive, we think that the decrees allowing these accounts should be revoked and the petitioner be given her day in court. Baker v. Blood, 128 Mass. 543. Clarke v. Andover,

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Hochberg v. Proctor
441 Mass. 403 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 2004)
Dowd v. Morin
471 N.E.2d 120 (Massachusetts Appeals Court, 1984)
Azarian v. First National Bank
423 N.E.2d 749 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1981)
Svenson v. First National Bank of Boston
363 N.E.2d 1129 (Massachusetts Appeals Court, 1977)
National Academy of Sciences v. Cambridge Trust Co.
346 N.E.2d 879 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1976)
Stevens v. Moossa
318 N.E.2d 840 (Massachusetts Appeals Court, 1974)
Jackson v. United States Trust Co.
280 N.E.2d 187 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1972)
Old Colony Trust Co. v. Bravo
267 N.E.2d 892 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1971)
Burlingham v. Worcester
218 N.E.2d 123 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1966)
Holyoke National Bank v. Wilson
214 N.E.2d 42 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1966)
Reynolds v. Remick
99 N.E.2d 279 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1951)
Barney & Carey Co. v. Town of Milton
87 N.E.2d 9 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1949)
Young v. Tudor
83 N.E.2d 1 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1948)
Bell v. Swift
76 N.E.2d 133 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1947)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
75 N.E.2d 17, 321 Mass. 638, 1947 Mass. LEXIS 694, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/porotto-v-fiduciary-trust-co-mass-1947.