Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the M. E. Church v. Mitchell

McSherry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. There are two appeals in this record .and both were taken from the same decree. That decree disposed of two cases which had been previously consolidated. One of those cases was instituted on the equity side of the Circuit Court for Garrett County by “The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church” against John T. Mitchell, .administrator, cum testamento annexo, of Maria A. Sherman ; .and the other was filed in the same Court by Isaiah M. Sherman and others against John T. Mitchell, administrator, cum testamento annexo, and “The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church” and others.

In each of those proceedings precisely the same questions were presented for adjudication, though they were presented in opposite ways, and the cases were therefore properly consoli ²⁰¹ dated. These questions—and there are two controlling ones ■—involve the interpretation of Maria A. Sherman’s will. One of these inquiries is whether “The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church” is the devisee and legatee intended to be named and actually described in the residuary clause of the will; and the other is, whether that residuary clause is valid. Its validity is assailed on the ground that it creates a trust whose objects are indefinite and uncertain.

By the decree appealed from the bill in the first case, under which the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society claimed the residuary estate, was dismissed ; whilst the relief sought in the second, viz., the annulment of the will, was granted. We shall not have occasion to refer to the proceedings any further. We will at once take up and dispose of what we have said are the two controlling questions in the consolidated cases. The clause of the will which gives rise to the pending controversy is in these words: “ I direct that my two houses and lots in Mountain Lake Park, Garrett County, Maryland, and my lots in Covington, Kentucky, and the stock in the Southern Building Association held in care of W. G.- Hay, of Hagerstown, Maryland, and all other property, both real and personal, other than that already bequeathed, be sold, and the proceeds, thereof, together with whatever monies I may die possessed, be held in trust by the Board of Managers of the Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America for the following purposes: After all my debts, bequests and provision for my burial, etc., be paid, that sufficient be used to educate as Bible readers in India six girls, one to be named * Dorcas Sherman ;’ one ‘ Avis Cecil Sherman ;’ one ‘ Mary Jane Sherman;’ one ‘ Sarah Jennie Sherman;’ one ‘ Jennie Smith ;’ one ‘ Grace Mabel Sherman ;’ the money remaining after that set aside for the education of the aforesaid Bible readers to be applied to the purchase of a building to be used for the education of girls in India to be called the ‘ M. Adelaide Sherman Home, ’ and the location of said building to be left to the decision of Bishop Thoburn or his succesors. ” ²⁰² Of late years we have repeatedly had occasion to state the various rules to which resort may be had in the interpretation of wills and they have become so familiar that we need not now reiterate them.

The cardinal canon around which all others centre is this, that the intention of the testator when ascertained from the whole instrument, or from the instrument as read in the light of surrounding circumstances existing at the date of its execution, must be given effect if that intention does not antagonize or conflict with some rule of law or of property. At the threshold- we are met face to face by the fact which stands out prominently, that the attempt made under the second of the consolidated bills is to strike down the intention of the testatrix, though that intention ought to be gratified if it is legally possible to do so. If the collateral kindred who filed that bill succeed in getting the property disposed of by the residuary clause just quoted, they will get it, not because the testatrix wished them to have it, but in spite of the obvious fact that she did not want them to possess it at all. Her intention would be defeated instead of being respected.

Starting with the. indisputable fact that the testatrix did not intend her collateral relations to have the property in question, because she specifically declared that it should go in a totally different direction, let us see whether the body corporate which filed the first of the two consolidated bills, and which claims that it is entitled to the property is the same entity which is misnamed in the will but which was designed by the testatrix to be the object of her bounty. This is a question purely of identification. The misnomer of a corporation will not defeat a devise or a bequest to it if its identity is otherwise sufficiently certain. Adjudged cases on this subject do not help in solving the inquiry now under consideration, though they may illustrate the application of the principle which must in the end determine the controversy.

At most they merely hold that under their own peculiar facts there were misnomers which did not obscure the identity of the real beneficiary; or else under other conditions that the ²⁰³ misdescriptions were incurably defective and consequently that the attempted gifts were inoperative. All such cases are controlled by the same principle ; and to that principle rather than to its application in other judgments resort must be had in these appeals. That principle, distinctly relating to this inquiry, is that the real and actual intention with respect to the identity of the devisee as that intention is gathered from the face of the will, or from the face of the will when viewed in the light of all the circumstances which surrouuded the tes* tatrix when the will was made, must be gratified if this can be done consistently with recognized rules of law ; for when it is clear who was intended to take, the accidental miscalling of the beneficiary’s name will not invalidate the gift. If it did, then, that accident would defeat the otherwise clear intention.

Now, it cannot admit of a doubt that Miss Sherman intended some Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to be the recipient of her bounty, because she has said so in plain and unambiguous words. But there is no such corporate or other body as the “ Board of Managers of the Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,” though there is an organization having a corporate existence and named The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This latter, as the evidence shows, is the only foreign missionary society in the Methodist Church that is engaged in the particular work which the will indicates the intended devisee and legatee was expected to perform with the proceeds of the residuary estate. The identification of the beneficiary depends not wholly on its name-The clause in question whilst calling the beneficiary the Board of Managers of the Foreign Missionary Society has set at rest all doubts as to identity by describing the beneficiary as a society engaged in mission work amongst women and girls in India—a work in which no other organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church is enlisted, in that distant land, save the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society.

Of this society the testatrix was a member and she was herself an evangelist. It has been clearly shown by the evidence that she took a deep interest in ²⁰⁴ 'the benevolent work of this society; that the society is supported by women and that its mission is exclusively amongst women and girls. Its charter, granted under the laws of New York, specifically declares “ that the particular business and •object of said society is to engage and unite the efforts of Christian women in sending female missionaries to women in foreign mission fields of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in ■supporting them and native Christian teachers and Bible readers -in those fields.” India is one of those fields. Here, then, we have a clear and explicit expression of an intention to give the •residuary estate not only to a Foreign Missionary Society of 'the Methodist Episcopal Church, but to a particular Foreign Missionary Society of that church, which society is described .as engaged in a class of work that no other known organization in that denomination performs or professes to perform, and of which society the testatrix was herself a member; and yet we are asked to disregard all this unerring evidence - of identification solely because in the name by which the clearly indicated thing is called the words “Board of Managers” are inac•curately used where the word “Woman’s” ought to have been written.

This request proceeds upon the hypothesis that the mame must