Geller v. Lust

Hammond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Sidney B. Lust, an entrepreneur and real estate investor who lived in Washington, acquired and kept not only a good reputation as a citizen and civic leader but a considerable bundle of this world’s goods. He died in 1955 survived by his wife, an unmarried adopted daughter, an adopted son, Bernard, and four grandchildren who were the children of Bernard and his then wife Lila. After Sidney’s death, Bernard and Lila were divorced and Bernard married Lorraine.

This marriage produced a fifth child, Bradley. By Item tenth of his will, after making minor bequests, Sidney left half his estate to his wife in a marital trust and provided that if she did not ²⁴⁸ exercise her power of testamentary appointment therein granted, the trust, at a stated time, should vest in designated issue of Bernard, per stirpes. An identical provision was made in Item eleventh of the will conditioned on his wife predeceasing the testator. Item twelfth of the will provided that whether his wife survived or predeceased him he gave his residuary estate to trustees on the following trusts (using the same language as that in Items tenth and eleventh) : “(1) To accumulate the income from the corpus of said trust until such time that any one of the issue of my son, Bernard S. Lust, in being at the time of my death, shall attain the age of twenty-one (21) years, at which time the corpus of the trust shall vest in the then living issue of the said Bernard S. Lust, in equal shares per stirpes; and “(2) Thereafter, to pay, apply or distribute all the income of such trust to the said issue of my son, Bernard S. Lust, in equal shares per stirpes; and • “(3) Upon any one of said issue attaining the age of thirty-five (35) years or upon the death of all of said issue in being at the time of my death, whichever shall first occur, to pay over the corpus of the trust, free of said trust, to those in whom the corpus of the trust has vested under Sub-section (1) of this Article.” Sidney Lust, the oldest child of Bernard, became twenty-one on December 6, 1967.

The trustees petitioned the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County to instruct them as to the true meaning of Item twelfth of the will seeking to find whether only Lila’s four children took or whether Bradley shared in the estate. Lila, on behalf of her four children on the one hand, and Lorraine and Bernard, on behalf of Bradley on the other, vigorously took up the testimonial cudgels, neither side objecting to the testimony of the other. ²⁴⁹ Lila’s claim summarized was that the testator thought Bernard was a playboy and a spendthrift and intended his hard earned estate to go only to the four grandchildren he knew and loved and not to other children he foresaw that Bernard would have upon remarriage,