Riggs v. Cragg

33 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 89
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 15, 1881
StatusPublished

This text of 33 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 89 (Riggs v. Cragg) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Riggs v. Cragg, 33 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 89 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1881).

Opinion

Daniels, J.:

The testator died on the third day of August, 1853, leaving a will and codicil, in which he nominated his widow and four of his sons as his executors. Of these the appellants are the only persons who .qualified, and. to them letters testamentary were issued by the surrogate. As such qualifying executors they also became trustees of that portion of the testator’s estate which was appropriated for the benefit of his infant daughter, Mary Alice Riggs. She was near the age of fourteen years at the time of her father’s decease, and intermarried writh the respondent in 1869. She died in March, 1870, intestate, leaving no children. After the issuing of letters testamentary to the appellants, they acted as the executors of the estate, and also as trustees of so much of it as was appropriated for the benefit of this daughter. After her decease the respondent, as her surviving husband, was appointed the administrator of her estate, and the proceedings resulting in the decrees from which the appeals have been taken, were instituted by him to obtain a settlement of the accounts of the appellants, both as executors and trustees. For the purpose of properly taking and stating a portion of these accounts, it became necessary that a construction should be placed upon so much of the will of the testator as was relied upon in support of part of the claim made upon this subject by the respondent. He claimed that the income of one-sixth of the testator’s estate, devised and bequeathed in trust for the benefit of his daughter Mary Alice, which accrued between the time of the testator’s decease and the attainment by her of the age of twenty-one years, became her individual property. The executors and trustees [93]*93contested this proposition and insisted that such income, in the absence of any expressed direction concerning its disposition in the will, became a part of the capital of that portion of the estate, and it was accordingly added to it by them. In his determination the surrogate decided that,the position taken by the respondent was correct, and accordingly charged the appellants, as trustees of his wife’s estate, with income derived from it, from April, 1854, to June, I860, when this daughter arrived at the age of twenty-one years. This determination of the surrogate has been strenuously resisted for want of jurisdiction, and the point is still relied upon in favor of the appellants.

" No express authority is delegated by the statute to the surrogate, conferring upon him the power to construe a will of real and personal estate in a proceeding of this nature, but jurisdiction has in terms been given to him to direct and control the conduct and settle "the accounts of executors and administrators. (3 R. S. [6th ed.}, 325, § 1, sub. 3.) And like authority has been conferred upon him by chapter 782, Laws 1867, over the accounts of testamentary trustees. Under that act power has been given to him to compel them to render accounts of their proceedings in the same manner as executors were at the time of its enactment required to account. These provisions are, each of them, so broad and comprehensive as to confer jurisdiction upon the surrogate to make a complete and final- settlement of the accounts to which they refer. And while they have not provided in terms that the surrogate may construe the provisions of the will under which the executors or testamentary trustees may have derived their title, still that must have been intended to be included when a complete settlement of the accounts could not otherwise be made, for the exereise of such authority is indispensably requisite to the attainment of the object prescribed by the statute. And when that appears to be the case the power which it becomes necessary to exercise for the puipose of securing the end ultimately to be attained is as completely given as though it was specially enumerated in the statute, for it is necessarily to be implied from enactments’ made in that form. (Chipman v. Montgomery, 63 N. Y., 221.) The rule upon this subject is that “whenever a power is given by statute everything necessary to make it effectual or requisite to attain the end is implied,” and [94]*94<l where the law requires a thing to be done it authorizes the performance of whatever may be- nécessary for executing its commands.” (Sedg. on Statutory, etc., Law, 92; 1 Kent [7th ed.], 513, marg. p. 464; Stief v. Hart, 1 Comst., 20, 30.) The ease now presented is therefore distinguishable from Tucker v. Tucker (4 Keyes, 136), and also from Bevan v. Cooper (72 N. Y., 318), for in neither of them were provisions of this or any similar nature presented for the consideration of the court. And the exercise of jurisdiction of this nature in such proceedings as these has long received the unquestioned sanction of the court of last resort in this State. It must accordingly now be held that the surrogate was vested with the authority to construe this portion of the testatoFs will, so far as that was necessary to make settlements of the accounts of the appellants as the executors and trustees of this estate.

At the time of the decease of the testator he left him surviving his widow and six children. And after providing for her proper support and directing the payment of his debts and certain legacies, he devised and bequeathed the rest, residue and remainder of his real and personal estate in equal portions to his six children. The one-sixth designed for the benefit of his daughter Mary Alice, he devised and bequeathed to his executors in trust for her separate use and benefit during her natural life, giving to her the net interest, dividends, or other periodical income thereof, and at her decease vesting the capital of this sixth in her issue, in case any should be left by her, and if she should leave no such issue, or other descendants, then her share was given in remainder to her surviving brothers and their issue, share and share alike.

During the minority of this daughter the testator directed his executors to pay to her mother for her support, education and maintenance, the sum of $400 a year until she attained the age of ten years, and after that a sum not exceeding $800 for the like purpose. No clearly express direction was given as to what should be the disposition of the income of this' sixth of his estate between the time of his decease and the time when Mary Alice should reach the age of twenty-one years. But it was not necessary that any positive direction should be given for the disposition of this income to render it the duty of the appellants to accumulate it for her during this period of time, for the statute has not prescribed any [95]*95particular mode of expression for tlie purpose of sanctioning or permitting such an accumulation; it has merely provided that the accumulation of rents and profits of real estate and of the interest of money, the produce of stock, or other income, or profits, arising from personal property, may be directed by any will or deed sufficient to pass real estate, or in the case of'personal property, by any instrument sufficient in law to pass such property. (2 E. S. [6th ed.], 1103, § 37; id., 1167, § 3.)

And this direction will be as effectually given when it may be clearly implied from the provisions of a will, as it can be when express terms are made use of for the purpose of conveying it. "What the statute requires to be regarded is the substance, rather than the form of the provisions which may be made, and they are to be so construed as to carry into effect the intention of the testator himself. (Taggart v. Murray, 53 N. Y., 233.)

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Bluebook (online)
33 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 89, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/riggs-v-cragg-nysupct-1881.