56 N.J. Eq. 275 | New York Court of Chancery | 1897
The controversy arises over the sixth clause of the will of Samuel R. Syms, who died in November, 1891. The clause, so far as material, reads as follows :
“Sixth. I direct my executors to transfer to such person as shall at the time of my death be the acting cashier of the First National Bank of Hoboken, New Jersey, eighty shares of the capital stock of said bank, now in my name, to be held and used by said cashier and his successor and successors in office,*276 in trust, for the following uses and purposes, to wit: To collect and receive during the corporate existence of said bank, either under its present charter or by virtue of any renewals or extensions thereof, the dividends made and declared payable from time to time thereon, and upon the first days of January in each and every year thereafter to divide and distribute such dividends equally among all the clerks and employes (including the cashier and janitor} of said bank, who shall at the time of such distribution be actually employed therein and whose employment in said bank shall have continued for a period of at least two years. * * * In case said bank shall by dissolution or otherwise cease to exist, then, and in that event, I give and bequeath the said eighty shares of stock, together with any increase of shares thereon,- as aforesaid, or the money payable in lieu thereof, to the Bank Clerks’ Mutual Benefit Association of the City of New York, to be held and invested by said association as a part of its permanent fund, and the income arising therefrom to be used and employed as may be directed by the constitution and by-laws of said association.”
It is plain that neither the bequest to the cashier of the First National Bank nor the bequest over to the Bank Clerks’ Mutual Benefit Association is charitable. Not being charitable, the objection made to them is that they violate the rule against perpetuities.
The gift in the first instance is to the cashier of the bank and its successors, in trust, to collect and receive during the corporate existence of the bank, either under its present charter “ or by virtue of any renewals or extensions thereof,” the dividends received, and on the 1st day of January of each and every year thereafter to divide them among the employes designated. If this is a trust which is to continue more than twenty-one years from the death of the testator it is invalid.
The bank was incorporated on June 19th, 1865, for the period of twenty years. Its corporate life would have ceased on June 19th, 1885, had it not been extended for a further period of twenty years under the provisions of the federal law of 1882. Its charter will therefore expire on June 19th, 1905. It is admitted that at testator’s death there was no act of congress under which any further extension was authorized, nor is there now. If the testator had limited the gift to the corporate existence of the bank, I should have thought, as we could only deal with the facts as they were at the time of testator’s death, and
It is an invariable principle, in applying the rule in those cases, says Mr. Jarman, that regard is to be had to possible not to actual events, and the fact that the gift might have included objects too remote is fatal to its validity, irrespective of the event. 1 Jarm. Wills *233.
The decision in the case of First Presbyterian Church v. State Bank, 28 Vr. 27, affirmed on error, seems to me to have some pertinency to this part of the argument. There the bank had given to the church a sealed instrument, in which it was agreed that so long as the church would refrain from extending its buildings westward, so as to obstruct the light on the south side of the bank building,
“ we [the hank] will pay to them [the trustees of the church] the yearly sum of §700, in quarter-yearly payments, commencing on the first day of July next, and after that rate for any portion of a year.”
It appears from the record in the case that the bank was organized in 1865 and was to continue for twenty years. The covenant was made in 1872 and before any act of congress had
It seems impossible, in the light of the adjudications, to split the bequest into two by reading it as a gift in trust, first, for
In the present case the court would give more effect to the testator’s intention to confer a benefit on the employes of the bank of which he had been so long president, if it declared that the gift was good not only for the fourteen years subsequent to testator’s death (during which it would exist under its present charter), but also for such further period as would, with this fourteen years, make up a term of twenty-one years, than it would if it declared that the gift was valid during the fourteen years only. It would hardly be contended, however, that this could be done. If it could, it might, with equal propriety, have been done in the case of Detwiller v. Hartman, 10 Stew. Eq. 347, and in all those cases in which the testator has attempted to create a trust not charitable, to continue indefinitely or for a period beyond the legal one.
As the first trust is void because it may endure too long, of course the gift over, which is not to take effect until the first trust is completely performed, must be void also.