Wheeler v. Fisher

151 P.2d 298, 65 Cal. App. 2d 598, 1944 Cal. App. LEXIS 753
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedAugust 30, 1944
DocketCiv. No. 14215
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 151 P.2d 298 (Wheeler v. Fisher) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wheeler v. Fisher, 151 P.2d 298, 65 Cal. App. 2d 598, 1944 Cal. App. LEXIS 753 (Cal. Ct. App. 1944).

Opinion

SHINN, J.

Two appeals are presented from an order settling the tenth account of a testamentary trustee. Appellants Ada Bothwell Fisher and Edith Bothwell Hale, adopted daughters of decedent, are entitled to receive the net income from the estate in trust—not all of it, but all that is involved in the matter in issue. The trustee took the trust property by decree of partial distribution in 1929. Among the assets were a ranch property in Colorado and bonds of several South American Republics. The Colorado property was kept until 1940, when it was sold for $14,000. While not entirely unproductive, it was held at a continuing loss to the trust, the carrying cost exceeding the income for the 11-year period by $3,734.90. These annual losses were reported by the trustee from time to time in his accounts as having been paid out of general income and all of the accounts but one were approved as presented. The South American bonds were sold in 1940 for $20,310.63. The trustee by his tenth account reported the amounts received for the Colorado land and for the bonds as capital of the trust. Appellants filed objections to the account, contending that such proceeds should have been apportioned between principal and income. The court rejected this contention but did charge the principal and credit the income account with the amount of the loss in keeping the Colorado land. The life beneficiaries appeal from so much of the order as refused apportionment as between principal and income, and the trustee appeals from that portion which charged the expenses of the Colorado land to the capital account. The questions upon the two appeals are interrelated. [601]*601For convenience we shall refer to the life beneficiaries as appellants and to the trustee appellant as trustee.

Appellants relied below, and they rely here, upon principles which have been carried into the Restatement, Trusts, as follows:

‘ ‘ § 241. Allocation on Delayed Conversion.
“(1) Unless it is otherwise provided by the terms of the trust, if property held in trust to pay the income to a beneficiary for a designated period and thereafter to pay the principal to another beneficiary is property which the trustee is under a duty to sell, and which produces no income or an income substantially less that the current rate of return on trust investments, or which is wasting property or produces an income substantially more than the current rate of return on trust investments, and the trustee does not immediately sell the property, the trustee should make an apportionment of the proceeds of the sale when made, as stated in Subsection (2).
“ (2) The net proceeds received from the sale of the property are apportioned by ascertaining the sum which with interest thereon at the current rate of return on trust investments from the day when the duty to sell arose to the day of the sale would equal the net proceeds; and the sum so ascertained is to be treated as principal, and the residue of the net proceeds as income.
“(3) The net proceeds are determined by adding to the net sale price the net income received or deducting therefrom the net loss incurred in carrying the property prior to the sale. ’ ’

Our own courts of review have not considered whether recognition should be given to the foregoing principles, although they are well established in other jurisdictions. (Lawrence v. Littlefield (1915), 215 N.Y. 561 [109 N.E. 611] ; Furniss v. Cruikshank (1921), 230 N.Y. 495 [130 N.E. 625] ; In re Pinkney (1924), 208 App.Div. 181 [202 N.Y.S. 818]; 238 N.Y. 602 [144 N.E. 909]; In re Jackson’s Will (1932), 258 N.Y. 281 [179 N.E. 496]; In re Satterwhite’s Will, 262 N.Y. 339 [186 N.E. 857] ; In re Lott’s Will (1937), 251 App. Div. 333 [296 N.Y.S. 43]; In re Chapal’s Will (1936), 269 N.Y. 464 [199 N.E. 762, 103 A.L.R. 1268]; Hagan v. Platt (1891), 48 N.J.Eq. 206 [21 A. 860]; Equitable Trust Company v. Swoboda (1933), 113 N.J.Eq. 399 [167 A. 525]; McCoy v. McCloskey (1922), 94 N.J.Eq. 60 [117 A. 473]; In re Nird[602]*602linger’s Estate (1938), 331 Pa. 135 [200 A. 656, 116 A.L.R. 1350]; Springfield Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Wade (1940), 305 Mass. 36 [24 N.E.2d 764]; 2 Scott on. Trusts, p. 1354; 4 Bogert, Trusts and Trustees, § 825; 4 Univ. of Pittsburgh L.Rev. (1937-38) 82; 36 Mich.L.Rev. (1937-38) 340. See, also, Annotation 103 A.L.R. 1271 and supplemental annotations 115, page 881; 116, page 1354; 129, page 1314, and 142, page 264.)

The doctrine of apportionment originated in the courts of England, where it was accepted as a satisfactory means of adjusting the rights of income beneficiaries and remainder-men in ease of failure to make sales as directed. As approved in the above cited cases and as adopted in the Restatement it has application to all cases in which a postive duty to sell property exists and there has not been an immediate sale, whether the failure to sell is inexcusable or is due to the exercise of the trustee’s sound judgment to postpone selling because of adverse market conditions. (Restatement, § 241 [Comment b hereinafter quoted].) It is well settled in the jurisdictions where the doctrine of apportionment has been considered that it should be applied whenever necessary in order to give full effect to the provisions of the trust. In arriving at the intentions of the trustor the doctrine of equitable conversion is often an important factor. Manifestly it is less difficult to understand the wishes of a trustor where he has imposed upon his trustee a duty to sell and to reinvest for the benefit of life beneficiaries than where he has vested him with authority to sell but has given no mandatory directions. Here the duty to sell was mandatory and there is no question as to the time when payment of income to the life beneficiaries was to commence. The decree of partial distribution read in part as follows:

“That said executor and executrix forthwith delivered to Elizabeth Word Wheeler the property and effects hereinafter specified in trust, however, upon and for the uses and purposes and with the powers following, that is to say:
“To convert the same into interest bearing securities such as are authorized by law for the investment of trust funds, with power to vary such investments at her discretion, and after deducting the lawful charges and expenses of managing the trust, but not including therein any charge for her personal services, to pay to [here follow provisions for payment of all net income].”

Such directions are construed as mandatory and they ex[603]*603press an intention to effect an equitable conversion. (See eases cited above; Restatement, Trusts, §131.)

In order to give effect to the direction to sell, the Colorado land must be deemed to have been sold as of the date when the duty to sell arose, and this was the date of the decree of partial distribution. It clearly appears that the life beneficiaries were intended to receive income upon the entire estate, and this can be accomplished, under the circumstances, only by paying them from the proceeds of the sale an amount equal to the income which would have been available to them if the trustee had been prompt in making the conversion.

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Bluebook (online)
151 P.2d 298, 65 Cal. App. 2d 598, 1944 Cal. App. LEXIS 753, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wheeler-v-fisher-calctapp-1944.