Toner's Estate
Toner's Estate
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The present proceedings were instituted by petition for the purpose of having a testamentary trust declared at an end and the fund distributed among the heirs of the testator; the relief prayed for was refused and the petitioners have appealed.
The petition alleges that James L. Toner died January 6, .1899, leaving a will, which was probated in Westmoreland County; that he devised his residuary estate to the
The petitioners prayed that the several orders before recited be vacated; that the court declare the trust “annulled” and “at an end,” because the charity had ceased and become impossible of performance through the “acts and negligence of the trustee”; and that the fund be awarded to the surviving executor of the testator “for distribution among his heirs and next of kin.” An answer and replication were filed, and, when the matter came to hearing, the petitioners asked a postponement so that they might present testimony, which request was refused; the court below adjudicated the case upon the pleadings.
The questions involved, as stated by appellants in their paper book, comprehend the following contentions: (1) That the court below had no power to refuse the prayers of the petition “without taking testimony as to the material facts averred therein, or, else, the court was bound to assume and find every material allegation of petitioners in their favor.” (2) That the Orphans’ Court had no power “to remove a trust estate to another county-” (3) “That the trust......has ceased and become impossible of performance through the negligence of the trustee,” and that, “as a result of the said failure of said trust, the trust estate of the decedent is now vested in his heirs and next of kin.”
As to the first contention, we are not convinced the court below erred when it refused the requested postponement to enable petitioners to present testimony. Although it is alleged in the petition that testator intended the Toner Institute to be located upon the farm designated in his will, and nowhere else, yet this and other like averments are mere allegations of the petitioners’ conclusions as to the wishes and purposes of the testator, and can have no controlling force separate and apart from the will; that document speaks for itself,
The appellants present no argument in support of their second point, and we shall not enter upon any lengthy discussion of it here; but, in this connection, the learned court below calls attention to the fact that there is nothing contained in the Toner will expressly prohibiting the sale of the property by the trustee, or the purchase of other real estate with the proceeds thereof, or an expenditure of the trust fund at or upon a different location from that mentioned by the testator; and, finally, that, under like circumstances, in appropriate cases, departures óf such a character have repeatedly been allowed by our courts for the purpose of carrying out charitable trusts, citing Burton’s App., 57 Pa. 213, 219; Mercer Home Application, 162 Pa. 232, 238-9; Avery v. Home for Orphans, 228 Pa. 58; Kramph’s Est., 228 Pa. 455, 461-3; see also what is said upon the subject in hand by Mr. Justice Mitchell in Nauman v. Weidman, 182 Pa. 263, 266. We may add that our courts, in their control over trustees who hold for charitable uses, exercise the broad visitorial and supervisory powers of the Commonwealth; hence, when in their opinion the interests of any particular trust can be served best by sending the fund into an adjacent county (as in the present case), they have ample power to do so, if such a course is not expressly or impliedly forbidden by the donor or testator : Mercer Home v. Fisher, 162 Pa. 239, 240; Kramph’s Est., supra.
In disposing of appellants’ third contention, the court below states: “Can this trust, conceding mismanagement by the trustee......, fail so that the next of kin of the donor may distribute the trust funds among themselves? It is a cardinal maxim in the . courts of chancery, upon this subject, that a trust will not fail for want of a
The conclusion of the court below, as just stated, is vigorously attacked by appellants, who contend that, on the facts in this case, the object of the trust has ceased; that, therefore, the trust has come to an end, and, under the Act of July 7,1885, P. L. 259, they are entitled to the fund in the hands of the trustee. It must be conceded, by all, that, prior to- this act, the appellants would have no standing, in a proceeding such as the one at bar, either as claimants or complainants; which brings us to a consideration of the applicability of the statute relied upon by them, and several others in pari materia therewith.
Section 10 of the Act of April 26, 1855, P. L. 328, defines the cy pres doctrine for our State. It provides, inter alia, that no disposition of property for charitable uses shall fail by reason of the “objects ceasing,” but it shall be the duty of any court having jurisdiction “to-carry into effect the intent of the donor or testator, so far as the same can be ascertained and carried into effect consistently with law and equity”; and, if this cannot
The next act applying the cy pres doctrine was passed in 1876 (May 26, P. L. 211) ; but this statute has no relation to the facts at bar.
The Act of 1885, supra, provides that, “in the disposition of property by will, made or to be made for any ......charitable......use or purpose, if the object of the trust:.... .has ceased to exist......such property shall go to the heirs-at-law and next of kin of decedent”; and this is the legislation relied upon by appellants.
The act last mentioned is followed, however, by the Act of May 9, 1889, P. L. 173, which provides that “no disposition of property heretofore or hereafter made for any......charitable use shall fail......by reason of the objects ceasing......; but it shall be the duty of any court having equity jurisdiction......to carry into effect the intent of the donor or testator, so far as the same can be ascertained and carried into effect consistently with law or equity”; and this later legislation, while leaving the Act of 1885, supra, unaffected in some particulars, completely restored to the courts their cy pres power in cases such as the present, where a ceasing of the objects of the trust is alleged.
The next legislation upon the subject in hand is the Act of May 23, 1895, P. L. 114, which, by its title, is an amendment to the Act of 1855, supra. This Act of 1895 reenacts, almost in totidem verbis, the tenth section of the statute passed in 1855, adding “corporations not for
Trim’s Est., 168 Pa. 395; Stevens’s Est., 200 Pa. 318, and Kortright’s Est. (No. 2), 237 Pa. 143,146, deal with the acts of assembly here in question, but do not rule the facts at bar, for in none of them did the petitioners rely upon an allegation that the objects of the trust had ceased; all of these cases are interesting, however, in
To return to the case at bar: There is force in appellants’ contention that greater efforts should have been made to carry out, to the letter, the provisions of testator’s will, and that, with this end in view, a careful and diligent trustee, on a sale of the coal underlying the land in question, would at least have inserted a covenant for surface support in his deed of conveyance. It is to be borne in mind, however, that the proceedings under review were not brought for the* purpose of-- removing a derelict trustee, but were instituted, by distant relations of the testator, in order to have the trust declared at an end, so that the fund involved might be distributed among themselves; which would mean the entire frustration of the donor’s purpose to found a public charity, a result never permitted when the general intent of a benefactor can be approximately carried out: Kramph’s Est., 228 Pa. 455, 463.
We are by no means convinced the court below erred in its refusal to find that the object of the trust here under consideration had ceased, within the legal meaning of that term; but, were the fact otherwise, under our law, as already shown, the cy pres doctrine would be applied by the courts, so as to accomplish, as far as possible, the testator’s general purpose. Therefore, which
We have two appeals before us, taken by the same parties. The first is as stated at the head of this opinion, while the second is to the decree entered permitting the trustee to mortgage the newly purchased real estate; but what we have written sufficiently covers both. The appeals are dismissed; appellants to pay the costs in each instance.
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- Trusts — Testamentary trusts — Trusts for charitable purposes— Removal of trust fund to another county — Negligence of trustee— Petition for termination of trust — Refusal — Gy pres doctrine — Statutes — Reenactment of earlier statute — Repeal by implication of intermediate statute — Acts of April 26, 1855, P. L. 828; July 7, 1885, P. L. 259; May 9, 1889, P. L. 178, and May 28, 1895, P. L. Ilk. 1. Courts, in their control over trustees who hold for charitable uses, exercise the broad visitorial and supervisory powers of the Commonwealth, and when in their opinion the interests of any particular trust can be served best by sending the fund into an adjacent county, they have ample power to do so, if such course is not expressly or impliedly forbidden by the donor or testator. 2. A testator, leaving a will, which was probated in Westmoreland County, devised his residuary estate to a religious society to erect and maintain an industrial school, and further declared “One portion of said residuary estate will consist of my farm [describing it] upon which I direct that the said Benedictine Society shall erect and set up suitable buildings- and establish a school of an industrial character for the training and education of boys....... In case [the society]......shall not accept the devise......then the same is given......to the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh for the same purpose as mentioned and for no other.” The society having refused the trust, the Catholic Bishop of Pittsburgh was appointed trustee and obtained leave to sell a part of the said real estate and to remove the institution which had been established thereon to the City of Pittsburgh. Certain next of kin of the testator petitioned that such decree be vacated. The lower court refused the petition without evidence. Petitioners contended that the court was bound to assume and find every material allegation of the petitioners in their favor, or else hear testimony thereon, and that the court had no power to remove the trust estate to another county. Held, that tbe petitioners’ allegation that tbe testator intended tbe institution to be erected upon his farm exclusively was not supported by the will, and that the court had power in its discretion to remove the trust estate to another county, if it should deem it desirable to do so, in the absence of any provision in the will expressly or impliedly forbidding such course. 3. It is a cardinal maxim in the courts of chancery that a trust will not fail for want of a faithful trustee. The mere fact that a trust for charitable uses has been mismanaged by the trustee does not entitle the collateral heirs of the testator to the property. 4. In such cases petitioners alleged that by reason of the mismanagement of the fund by the trustee it had become impossible to carry out the intention of the testator and that they were entitled to the fund under the Act of July 7, 1885, P. L. 259, providing, in effect, that, in the disposition of property by will, made for charitable purposes, if the object of the trust ceases to exist, such property shall go to the heirs at law and next of kin of decedent. The Orphans’ Court dismissed the petition. Held, upon appeal,, that under the Act of May 9, 1889, P. L. 173, providing that in such cases it shall be the duty of the court having equity jurisdiction to carry into effect the intent of the testator, so far- as the same can be ascertained, and the Act of May 23, 1895, P. L. 114, reenacting the cy pres Act of April 26, 1855, P. L. 328, Section 10, providing that it shall be the duty of a court of equity to carry into effect the intent of the testator as far as practicable and otherwise the fund “should accrue to the public treasury for the public use,” the petitioners had no legal standing to complain, and the decree was affirmed. 5. A later statute, which is merely a reenactment of a former one, does not repeal an intermediate act which qualifies and limits the first one, but such intermediate act will be deemed to remain in force and to qualify or modify the new act in the same manner as it did the first.