Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church v. Baker

Jones, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a decree of the Circuit Court No. 2, of Baltimore City, construing the will of Melissa Baker, late of said city. The record shows that the testatrix died in March, 1899, leaving a considerable estate and a will with two codicils, in which she made a number of bequests and devises, many of which are free from doubt and have ■created no difficulty in giving effect thereto in the course of .administration of the estate. Some of them, however, have given rise to doubts as to their proper construction and legal effect, and this case was instituted by the executors of the will for the purpose of having these construed and. to .have their trust administered under the direction of the Court.

The provisions of the will and codicils, which were adjudicated below, and about which question is made in this Court, read as follows : IN THE ORIGINAL WILL : “Item 18. I give and bequeath to the Woman’s College, located at the city of Lynchburg, in the State of Virginia, the sum of eight hundred dollars, for the education of one or more worthy girls. “Item 19. I give and bequeath to George B. Baker, the sum of three thousand dollars, in trust and confidence that he will distribute and pay over said sum among and to persons and charitable institutions, the names of which and the portions to be paid to each beneficiary will appear in a memorandum which will be hereafter prepared by me or at my request. And any part of said sum not disposed of shall be distributed by said trustee among worthy persons and charitable institutions in accordance with views which I have expressed to said George B. Baker.” IN THE FIRST CODICIL : “Whereas, by the nineteenth item I have devised and be ⁵⁶³ queathed in trust to George B. Baker, to be distributed to persons or charities, to be named in memorandum to be hereafter given, if not given or any surplus, to be distributed by him, at his discretion, to worthy persons or charities, in accordance with my views as expressed to him, the sum of three thousand dollars, I do hereby increase the said amount three thousand dollars, making the amount under this item six thousand dollars.” IN THE SECOND CODICIL : “Item g.

I give, devise and bequeath to the Trustees of the Randolph-Macon College, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Virginia, four thousand two hundred dollars, to be applied to aid deserving and promising young women, especially such as expect to enter upon mission work, to attend the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, at Lynchburg, as students, such aid to be either by loans or free scholarships, as said trustees may deem best. The receipt of the treasurer of the said board of trustees shall be a complete discharge of my executors for the same. “Item io. I give and bequeath to the Trustees of the corporation of Ti'inity Methodist Episcopal Church, South, corner of Madison avenue and Preston street, Baltimore, three thousand five hundred dollars, to be invested in safe securities, and the annual income applied as follows: As to two thousand dollars thereof, to the support of the pastor of said church; as to six hundred dollars thereof, to be paid to the Trinity Auxiliary of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Plpiscopal Church, South, to be included in the receipts of the said society and remitted to the treasurer of the Baltimore Conference Society of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Elpiscopal Church, South, for the general fund, including five dollars of the same for the conference contingent fund; as to five hundred dollars thereof, to be paid towards the support of the superannuated preachers, their widows and orphans, of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South ; and as to the remain ⁵⁶⁴ der; four hundred dollars, to be given to the infant class of the Sunday-school of said church, to be contributed by said class for the support of a little girl in one of the schools under the care of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. " Item tj.

I give, devise and bequeath to E. B. Pretty-man, Wm. W. Smith and George B. Baker, the homestead property, known as Friendsbury (with the request that the name of Friendsbury Home be applied to the same), on which I now reside, consisting of one entire block, with the buildings thereon, bounded by Baker, Monroe and Presbury streets and Friendsbury'Place, according to the map hereto attached and made a part of this instrument, in trust, as follows: • “ If at. the time of the probate of my will the Women’s Parsonage and Home Mission Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, shall have become a body corporate, capable in law to receive devises, bequests and gifts, and if within two years thereafter, said society so incorporated, shall have raised or provided a sum of not less that ten thousand dollars, as an endowment fund for city mission work, and shall agree to conduct such work in the city of Baltimore, and' to apply the proceeds of said fund to that work in said city, and shall further agree to accept the said homestead property hereby devised, and use the same as centre of operations in the work of-said society, in the city of Baltimore, then said trustee shall convey said homestead property, to said Women’s Parsonage and Home Mission Society, of the Methodist.Episcopal Church, South, to hold to the use thereof,.so long as said society shall continue to use said property for sáid purposes, with full authority to, erect buildings thereon for mission meetings, lodgings, orphanage or any purpose connected with mission work, but without power to sell or alienate said land or any part, thereof.. “ And if said Women’s Parsonage and Home Mission Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, shall not ⁵⁶⁵ within said two years comply with the conditions above set forth, then my said trustees, the survivors or survivor of them, shall have full power, under this codicil to appoint such duly incorporated society doing mission work, in the City of Baltimore, as they may deem best to receive said devise, and shall convey said property to them on the terms and conditions above set forth, but said trustees shall have one full year, after the lapse of said two years from the probate of my will, in which to make said selection and permit the performance of said conditions. “ Item 1‡. I give and bequeath to E. B. Prettyman, William W. Smith and George B. Baker, trustees named in the foregoing item, ten thousand dollars in trust, to pay over the same to the Women’s Parsonage and Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, if they shall become incorporated and comply with the requirements of said item ; but if they shall not, then to be applied by said trustees as provided in the last clause of said item. Item 15.

Should any residuum of my estate remain after gratifying the foregoing legacies, I give, devise and bequeath all such residuum to my nephew, George B. Baker, in trust, to be applied by him under the provisions of the nineteenth item of my said will.” There can be but little difficulty in disposing of the questions of construction here arising, as respects some of the clauses which have been recited. By the provisions contained in the 19th item of the original will, and in the first codicil, together with the residuary disposition, in the 15th item of the second codicil, the testatrix manifestly intended to create a trust, and not to give the beneficial interest in the property, therein intended to be bequeathed to George B. Baker, the person named in these clauses. The beneficiaries of the trust are to be ascertained and pointed out by a memorandum to be left by the testatrix or at the discretion of the trustee, where, or in so far as the memorandum fails to dispose of the funds intended to be bequeathed. This brings these provisions directly within the effect of the ⁵⁶⁶ decision of this Court, in regard to a similar testamentary-disposition, in the case of Saylor v. Plaine, 31 Md." 158.

In that case the trust was sought to be supported by the actual production of a memorandum left by the testator indicating the purposes to which the subject of the bequest was to be applied. Here the proof shows there was no memorandum in existence to direct the application of the property intended to be dedicated to the trust, nor are any beneficiaries thereof defined or ascertained in any way other than in the way of verbal suggestions to her trustee to guide his discretion; making the attempted disposition as contained in the items of the will and codicil here being considered more plainly ineffectual than was the case in the decision of this Court just referred to. These provisions we regard as too obviously void to require further allusion to them. On the other hand, the provision in the 10th item of the second codicil which contains the bequest to Trinity Church of thirty-five hundred dollars, which gives to the said church two thousand dollars of the said bequest for “the support of the pastor of said church,” is plainly valid upon the authority of the cases of England, Extr., v. Vestry of Prince George's Par. et al., 53 Md. 466 , and Halsey et al. v. The Convention of the Prot.

Epis. Church et al., 75 Md. 275 , in which bequests making substantially the same provision as that now being considered, and where the bequests were in terms and language very similar, were upheld. The proof shows that the church to which the bequest was made is an incorporated body engaged in religious work, and having a pastor as the principal directing agency in this work and an important factor in promoting the object of its corporate existence. Gifts in aid of so important a function of such an incorporated religious body fall within the scope and effect of other decisions of this Court, even if they were not directly supported by those just referred to.

Of these the case of Eutaw Place Baptist Church v. Shively, 67 Md. 493 , is an example. This part of the bequest in the 10th item of the second codicil must, therefore, be held valid. ⁵⁶⁷ Before leaving this loth item we may as well examine the other provisions therein contained which are here brought in question. We may say here that as no point has been made as to the slight misnomer of this corporation in the bequest made to it, we need not advert to the misnomer as a matter for our consideration, although it was referred to in the brief of counsel who appeared on behalf of Trinity Church, further than to say that it sufficiently appears from the evidence that the corporation that is making the claim for the bequest contained in this item io is identical with the legatee therein named. Next, after the direction in this item io, that two thousand dollars of the thirty-five hundred dollars thereby bequeathed shall be appropriated to the support of the pastor of the church, occurs, as has been seen, the direction that six hundred dollars thereof shall be “paid to the Trinity Auxiliary of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to be included in the receipts of the said society and remitted to the Treasurer of the Baltimore Conference Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the general fund, including five dollars of the same for the conference contingent fund.” Now it is evident this six hundred dollars is not given to Trinity Church absolutely, or for its general purposes.

It is to take the fund for the use of others, and becomes, therefore, trustee of the fund. The immediate cestui que trust is the “Trinity Auxiliary of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,” and it has been argued on this appeal, as it was in the Court below, that this “auxiliary” is an “integral” part of Trinity Church, the legatee; and that, therefore, the bequest is within the principle enunciated in the case of Eutaw St. Baptist Church v. Shively, supra. This, however, is not deducible from the evidence. From that it appears that it is not an incorporated body, and its organization and objects are described as follows: “The women of Trinity Church have organized an auxiliary of the Women’s For ⁵⁶⁸ eign Missionary Society, and they raise a sum every year .which they remit to the Treasurer of the Baltimore Annual Conference, and that treasurer 'remits it to the General Women’s Missionary Board at Nashville.” It is apparent, therefore, that this “Auxiliary” is not an agency of the church corporation which, like the Sunday-school in the case last above referred to, was organized, controlled and directed in its work by the corporation, and existing by authority of the corporation ; but it is an independent, voluntary association called into existence by, the volition of the members composing it, and continuing its existence only at the volition and pleasure of its membership.

As soon, therefore, as this money (the six hundred dollars in question) is paid over to the beneficiary named (The Trinity Auxiliary) the church corporation would lose control of,-and authority over, it; and there would be no one that a Court of Equity could call upon to give an account of it. Then the difficulty of enforcing the trust, or rather the impracticability of enforcing it through a Court of Equity is emphasized in this case because the duty of the “Auxiliary” is only to pay the money in question “to the Treasurer of the Baltimore Conference Society of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,” which, according to the evidence, is another unincorporated body over which a Court of Equity could have no control to compel an observance of the directions contained in the trust. For the reasons assigned, the provision, in the bequest here under consideration which gives six hundred dollars to Trinity Church corporation for the purposes indicated must be held to be void. And the same must be held as to the two remaining provisions, the next of which is the one giving “ five hundred dollars ” “to be paid towards the support of the superannuated preachers, their widows and orphans of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.” We agree entirely with the Court below that this provision is to be pronounced void if ⁵⁶⁹ we are to respect the authority of the case of Church Extension Society of the M. E. Church et al. v. Smith, &c., 56 Md. 362 .

In that case this Court was treating of a bequest to the appellant church corporation of a sum of money “to be used as a part of the 'Perpetual Loan Fund’ of said society and it appearing from the facts agreed upon in the case that this loan fund was a fund “ set apart to be loaned to necessitous churches of the Methodist Episcopal Church erected from time to time within the limits of the United States and its territories, and the beneficiaries and recipients thereof, are such of said churches, as the committee in charge of said fund for the time being, may in their discretion select.” The Court said at page 397: “ According to the uniform course of decisions in this State, a trust cannot be upheld unless it be