WACHOVIA BANK & TRUST COMPANY v. Dodson

131 S.E.2d 875, 260 N.C. 22, 1963 N.C. LEXIS 639
CourtSupreme Court of North Carolina
DecidedJuly 19, 1963
Docket377
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 131 S.E.2d 875 (WACHOVIA BANK & TRUST COMPANY v. Dodson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
WACHOVIA BANK & TRUST COMPANY v. Dodson, 131 S.E.2d 875, 260 N.C. 22, 1963 N.C. LEXIS 639 (N.C. 1963).

Opinion

PARKER, J.

Defendant appellant assigns as error that the court erred in adjudging that the legacies bequeathed by Item Fourth of the Will and by Item First of the codicil thereto are specific legacies, and carried with them all accretions resulting from stock splits after the death of the testatrix, and that the legatees named in these instruments became vested of the stock bequeathed them upon the death of the testatrix but with the enjoyment of said stock postponed until the death of the last to die of Mrs. A. P. Douglas or Nannie Pepper, and that these legacies carried with them all accretions in the form of cash dividends (directly attributable to the stock designated in said specific bequests) between the time of the death of the testatrix and the time of the death of Mrs. A. P. Douglas.

Defendant appellant contends that the bequests of Reynolds Tobacco Company stock in Item Fourth of the will and in Item First of the codicil thereto are demonstrative legacies, and thus do not carry with *33 them all accretions by way of stock dividends or stock splits and cash dividends that have accrued after the death of the testatrix.

A will speaks only from the death of (the testator. Yount v. Yount, 258 N.C. 236, 128 S.E. 2d 613; Coffield v. Peele, 246 N.C. 661, 100 S.E. 2d 45. “A codicil is a supplement to a will, annexed for the purpose of expressing the testator’s after-thought or amended intention. Green v. Lane, 45 N.C. 113. It is to 'be construed with the will itself, and the two are to be considered as constituting a single instrument. Darden v. Matthews, 173 N.C. 186, 91 S.E. 835.” Smith v. Mears, 218 N.C. 193, 10 S.E. 2d 659.

It is hornbook law that the primary duty of the court is to discover the testatrix’s intent as expressed in her will and her codicil thereto, and if it is not in contravention of some established rule of law or public policy, such intention must be given effect. Entwistle v. Covington, 250 N.C. 315, 108 S.E. 2d 603; Smith v. Mears, supra. That must be discovered from the language she used in the will and her codicil thereto, which in cases of ambiguity may be interpreted in the light of conditions existing at the time the will was made and at the time the codicil thereto was made. Strong’s N. C. Index, Vol. 4, Wills, secs. 27 and 28.

Item Fourth of the will reads:

“Upon the death or marriage of both of my said sisters, Mrs. A. P. Douglas and Miss Nannie Pepper, I give -and bequeath to my sister, Mrs. J. C. Dodson, seventy-five shares of my Common B Stock of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and I give and bequeath to the children of Mrs. J. C. Dodson (there being seven living at this time), seven shares each of my Common B stock of The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.”

Item First of the codicil thereto reads:

“I hereby alter section 'Fourth’ of said will by adding in said section my brother-in-law, J. C. Dodson, to whom I give and bequeath twenty-five shares of my Common B Stock of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. This out of love and affection for him, and in appreciation of his kindness to me.”

Stacy, C.J., speaking for a unanimous Court, said in Heyer v. Bulluck, 210 N.C. 321, 186 S.E. 356:

“A specific legacy is a bequest of a specific article, distinguished from all others of the same kind, pointed out and labeled by the testator, as it were, for delivery to the legatee, such as a par- *34 ti-cular horse, a -piece of silver, or money in a -certain purse or chest, or a particular -corporate stock, or a particular bond or other obligation for the payment of money. Shepard v. Bryan, supra [195 N.C. 822, 143 S.E. 835], ‘If the thing bequeathed is, by the terms of the wil-1, individuated so that it is distinguishable from all others of the same kind, it is a specific legacy’—Leaming, V. C., in Kearns v. Kearns, 77 N.J. Eq. 453, 76 Atl. 1042, 140 Am. St. Rep. 575.
“ A demonstrative legacy is a bequest of money or other fungible goods, payable out of or charged upon a particular fund in such a way as not to amount to- a gift of the corpus of the fund, or to evince an intent to relieve the general estate from liability in case the .fund fail, and so described as to be indistinguishable -from other things of the same kind. Shepard v. Bryan, supra; 28 R.C.L. 292.”

At the time of testatrix’s death, she owned 575 shares of Common B stock of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and 100 shares of the common capital stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company. In Item Fourth of her will and in Item First of her codicil thereto, she gives to the legatees therein named specified numbers of shares “of my Common B stock o-f the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company,” thereby naming the particular corporate stock she bequeathed these legatees. From a consideration of the whole will and the whole codicil thereto, and the attendant circumstances at the time these instruments were made, we are satisfied that these legacies are specific, and that it was the clear intent of the testatrix to- make these legacies specific.

Our opinion that these are specific legacies finds support in our -case of Smith v. Smith, 192 N.C. 687, 135 S.E. 855, in which t'be facts are quite similar. M. F. Nesbit in Item 4th of his will bequeathed and devised to his wife all the residue of his estate to -hold during her ¡natural life, the income to be hers albsoüutely. In Item Fifth he directed that all his property shall remain as it now is under the direction of his wife, so long -as she shall -live, -and after her death, his property shall be distributed as provided in the items following. In Item 10th he bequeathed unto Nannie Lee Kerr Nesbit 20 shares of the capital stock of the Mooresville Cotton Mills, Mooresville, N. C.; in Item 11th ten shares of the same stock to Alice Lee Nesbit Neikirk; in Item 12th ten shares of the same stock to Fred Nesbit Porter; in Item 13th ten shares of the same stock to Barron P. Smith;- and in Item 14th *35 ten shares of the same stock to Lee Parker. It appears from the judgment of the trial judge that the ten shares of stock bequeathed to Lee Parker were revoked and the said ten shares of stock by a codicil to the will were bequeathed to F. E. Nesbit. In Item 19th he provides that tihe residue of his estate, after the death of his wife, shall be equally divided among persons specified. At the time of his death in 1907, the testator owned 60 shares of the capital stock of the Moores-ville Cotton Mills. In January 1917, and subsequently thereto, Moores-ville Cotton Mills declared stock dividends, which were delivered to the executor, until the executor held 360 shares of common stock of the mill and 20 shares of its preferred stock. Upon the death of the widow in 1925, the legatees to whom the stock was bequeathed by the testator in items 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th of .the will, and F. E. Nesbit who by codicil to the will received the ten shares of stock 'bequeathed to Lee Parker in Item 14th of the will, claimed the stock together with the stock dividends.

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Bluebook (online)
131 S.E.2d 875, 260 N.C. 22, 1963 N.C. LEXIS 639, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wachovia-bank-trust-company-v-dodson-nc-1963.