In re Estate of Knudson
DO NOT CITE. SEE RAP 10.4(h).
Court of Appeals Division I
State of Washington
Opinion Information Sheet
Docket Number: 40669-8-I
Title of Case: In RE the Estate of Ida S. Knudson
v.
Nancy Andrich, Appellant
File Date: 10/12/98
SOURCE OF APPEAL
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Appeal from Superior Court of Skagit County
Docket No: 13300
Judgment or order under review
Date filed: 04/14/97
Judge signing: Hon. George E. McIntosh
JUDGES
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Authored by Susan R. Agid
Concurring: Ronald E. Cox
Ann L. Ellington
COUNSEL OF RECORD
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Counsel for Appellant(s)
Eugene H. Knapp Jr.
Lane Powell Spears Lubersky
325 Pine Street
Mount Vernon, WA 98273-3851
Linda B. Clapham
Lane Powell Spears Lubersky
Ste 4100 Pacific 1st Ctr
1420 5th Ave
Seattle, WA 98101
Ellen M. Davis
Lane Powell Spears Lubersky
1420 Fifth Avenue
Suite 4100
Seattle, WA 98101
Counsel for Respondent(s)
Elliott W. Johnson
Angevine & Johnson
711 South First Street
Mount Vernon, WA 98273-3812
John W. Murphy
709 South First St.
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
Charles K. Wiggins
Attorney At Law
241 Madison Ave N
Bainbridge Is, WA 98110
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
In re the Estate of: )
Ida S. Knudson, Ida McKenna, ) No. 40669-8-I
Personal Representative, )
) DIVISION ONE
Respondents, )
)
v. )
)
Nancy Andrich, )
)
Appellant, )
)
and )
)
Archie Knudson, Ed Knudson, )
William H. Knudson, Vicki Lee )
Knudson-Baker, Chris Knudson, )
Robert E. Nielens, Jr., John Farrell, )
Linda Knudson-Kooy, Puget Knudson, ) UNPUBLISHED
Patricia L. Wargo-Young, Pat Farrell, )
Mike Farrell, ) FILED:
Defendants. )
)
)
AGID, A.C.J. -
"I have read {Blackstone's chapter on the nature and
interpretation of vested and contingent remainders}
frequently but never without a mixture of delight
and despair." -- Chancellor Kent{1}
Nancy Andrich appeals the trial court's denial of her claim to an interest
in Ida S. Knudson's estate. Andrich contends that she purchased a valid
interest in Ida's estate from Glen Bruner after the death of Mabel Bruner,
Ida's daughter. Andrich disputes the trial court's primary conclusions that
1)Mabel Bruner, at the time of her death, did not hold an interest in her
mother's estate, 2) this interest therefore could not have passed from Mable
to Glen upon Mabel's death, and 3)Andrich acquired nothing when she
purchased Mabel's alleged expectancy from Glen. Because the clear language
of Ida's will supports the trial court's decision that Mabel did not
possess an alienable interest in Ida's estate, we affirm.
FACTS
Ida S. Knudson died on June 24, 1967. Her will, dated May 10, 1962,
was admitted to probate by the Skagit County Superior Court on July 10,
1967. The will provided that her assets, consisting primarily of an
interest in Skagit County farm property, were to be administered in a
lifetime trust for the benefit of her daughter, Helen Welch. Ida created
this trust in recognition of the fact that Helen was the only one of her 10
children who "lack{ed} full competence and capability of caring for herself
. . . ."2 This support trust lasted nearly 30 years.
Helen Welch died on August 25, 1994. Her death triggered Article
Eight, paragraph 14, of Ida's will, which provides:
This trust is terminated upon the death of my daughter, HELEN WELCH
and my trustee shall then distribute all real and personal property
then unexpended from the trust estate in equal shares to my
children, Ed Knudson, Mabel Brunner, Hanzy Neilans {sic}, Puget
Knudson, Marie Farrell,Harold Knudson, Chris Knudson, Ida McKenna,
and as to any of such children who may be deceased at the time of
the death of HELEN WELCH, the share of such child shall be
distributed in equal shares to his or her living lineal descendants.
Of the eight children named in Ida's will as remainder beneficiaries, only
Puget Knudson, Chris Knudson, and Ida McKenna were living at the time of
Helen's death. Ed Knudson, Marie Farrell, Harold Knudson and Hanzy Neilens
all had surviving children, but Hanzy's children released their interest in
Ida's estate in settlement of an unrelated lawsuit. Mabel Bruner3 died in
1979 without leaving lineal descendants.
Mabel was married to Glen Bruner and lived in Arizona at the time of
her death. Mabel's will devised all of her real and personal property to
Glen. In 1987, Nancy Andrich (daughter of Ed Knudson) and Glen entered
into an agreement under which Glen agreed to sell Mabel's remainder
interest in her mother's estate to Andrich. After the sale closed on
August 14, 1987, the joint escrow agent notified the attorney for Ida's
estate of the sale, who took no action at that time.4
DISCUSSION
Andrich contends that Ida's will created in Mabel Bruner an alienable
vested remainder interest in Ida's estate. In 1987, Andrich and Glen
Bruner relied on this assumption in executing an agreement to transfer
Mabel's interest in Ida's estate to Andrich. Whether Mabel possessed a
vested interest which Glen could inherit and subsequently transfer depends
on Ida's testamentary intent as evinced by her will. A testator's intent
"should, if possible, be garnered from the language of the will itself."5
Rules of will construction may guide the court in its determination, but
these rules are ancillary to the primary task of discerning intent.6
As noted above, Ida's will outlined the trustee's duties after Helen's
death:
{The} trustee shall then distribute all real and personal property then
unexpended from the trust estate in equal shares to {Ida's} children . . .
and as to any of such children who may be deceased at the time of the death
of HELEN WELCH, the share of such child shall be distributed in equal shares
to his or her living lineal descendants.
Ida's estate argued successfully at trial that this language establishes an
alternative precondition for inheritance under the will: Ida's children
must either survive Helen Welch or leave living lineal descendants.
Andrich maintains that no such precondition exists. She claims the above
language does not delay the vesting of the children's interest to the time
of Helen's death. In her view, Ida's children possessed vested interests
in Ida's estate from the moment Ida died. Viewed in its entirety, the will
does not support Andrich's contention.
First, the will evinces Ida's intent to benefit her living children
and their issue, not her children's estates or heirs. The most compelling
evidence of this intent is the language of Article Eight, paragraph 14, of
Ida's will. Upon Helen's death, the residue of the trust property was to
be distributed to Ida's living children in equal shares. If a child had
predeceased Helen, that child's share was to be distributed in equal shares
to the child's "living lineal descendants." If Ida had intended the result
encouraged by Andrich, she would have used the term "heirs" instead of
"living lineal descendants" in this provision. In that case, when Helen
died, Mabel's share of the property would have passed to Glen, as Mabel's
designated heir. But because the will refers to "lineal descendants," and
Mabel had no children, Article Eight, paragraph 14, gives Mabel no interest
in Ida's estate.
A second indication that Ida's will did not create vested remainders
in her children is that the will primarily benefited only Helen Welch.
Ida's will was carefully crafted to ensure that the trust would provide for
Helen's "care, comfort, maintenance and health" during her lifetime. Ida
authorized the trustee to "rent, lease, mortgage, dike, drain, improve and
in any other manner manage or handle the real or personal property of this
trust" for Helen's benefit. In addition, with consent of all of Ida's
living children, the trustee could sell the trust corpus during Helen's
lifetime. If Helen's care required exhaustion of the trust corpus, the
will authorized the trustee to do so. It logically follows that, in the
absence of evidence of contrary intent in Ida's will, Ida's other children
were not guaranteed interests in the trust assets until Helen no longer
depended on the trust for her support.
Additionally, Ida's will demonstrates an intent to fairly divide the trust
residue among members of her immediate family. Although Andrich is Ida's
granddaughter and currently holds an interest in Ida's property as a living
lineal descendant of Ed Knudson, this coincidence does not strengthen her
claim to Mabel's alleged interest. Ida's will provided that the lineal
descendants of her children would take from the trust assets in equal
shares. Allowing Andrich to take as a descendant of Ed Knudson, and again
as the purchaser of Mabel Bruner's interest, would reduce the share taken
by each of Ida's grandchildren and result in a disposition contrary to
Ida's intent.
Although resort to rules of will construction is not warranted when the
testator's intent is clear from the four corners of the will, Andrich urges
this court to consider two rules of construction in this case. First, she
argues that the law favors vested, rather than contingent, remainders.7
Andrich believes applying this rule leads to the conclusion that Mabel's
remainder interest under the will was vested, subject to defeasance only if
Mabel died leaving issue. To support her argument, Andrich relies on
Kjosness v. Lende,8 a case in which the decedent left his estate in trust
for his wife's life with the remainder to his nine children. The
decedent's son, Ingram, died 27 years later at age 69, followed four years
later by decedent's wife. In determining that Ingram's remainder interest
was vested, the court relied on the following language in the will:
when my said son shall have reached the age of forty-five years, . . . pay
over to my said son the principal or corpus of said one-ninth of said residue,
fully discharged of trust, to him absolutely and forever. If my said son shall
predecease me or if he shall die before having reached the age of forty-five
years, then I direct that the said . . . residue . . . shall be paid over,
forthwith, to the surviving children or child of my said son, or to the living
issue of any deceased children or child of my said son . . . .{9}
This language, unlike the language in Ida's will, clearly states the
conditions which must occur before Ingram's interest could vest. Because
Ingram survived the testator and reached the age of 45, he met the stated
conditions and his remainder became possessory. The Kjosness court
specifically indicated that this result emanated from "the terms of the
will as drafted,"10 noting that the decision was "consistent with,"11 but not
dependent on, the relevant rules of construction. Kjosness provides no
support for Andrich's position for two reasons. The Kjosness will differs
markedly from Ida's will in its specific statement that the interest vests
"absolutely and forever" when the stated conditions occur and, second, it
reinforces the notion that the language of the will controls.
Andrich also claims that the legal presumption against intestacy supports
her claim. It is true that a testator is presumed to have disposed of his
or her entire estate and would not intend that any portion of it pass
through intestacy.12 This tenet, however, does not apply to Ida's will
because denying Andrich's claim will not result in intestacy it will simply
increase the interests of those children and grandchildren designated in
the will. The case Andrich cites is distinguishable because there the rule
was necessary to prevent property from passing through intestacy to someone
the testator deliberately omitted from her will.
The trial court correctly construed Ida's will in its entirety and
concluded that Ida intended that her estate be divided equally among her
living children and the living children of her deceased children named in
her will. The technical rules of construction advocated by Andrich also
support the trial court's conclusion. We therefore affirm.
WE CONCUR:
1 Quoted in Shufeldt v. Shufeldt, 130 Wash. 253, 257, 227 P. 6 (1924). As
in this case, the Shufeldt court tangled with interpretation of remainder
interests, acknowledging how perplexing it can be.
2 In the event that Helen Welch failed to survive Ida, Article Nine of
Ida's will provided that her property should be distributed to her "then
living children."
3 Mabel's last name is spelled "Brunner" in Ida's will and in the trial
court's order, and "Bruner" in Mabel's will and probate documents.
4 The record does not reflect that the attorney for Ida's estate received
actual notice of the sale. We know only that the escrow agent was
instructed to give such notice. Andrich now contends that Ida's estate, in
waiting 7 years to object to the sale of Mabel's interest to Andrich, is
being "patently unfair" to the beneficiaries and acting to "frustrate the
contract between Nancy Andrich and Glen Brunner." Because Andrich did not
raise this argument in the trial court, we need not address this issue on
appeal. RAP 2.5(a).
5 In re Estate of Price, 73 Wn. App. 745, 754, 871 P.2d 1079 (1994) (citing
In re Estate of Bergau, 103 Wn.2d 431, 435-36, 693 P.2d 703 (1985)).
6 The Supreme Court of Washington consistently elevates the testator's
intent as expressed in the terms of the will over technical rules of
construction:
" . . . 'Upon the rule of testamentary interpretation established in this
state, it is immaterial whether the doctrine of remainders is correctly or
incorrectly applied. . . . Whatever that doctrine may be and however it may
be applied, it does not set aside the supreme rule that the interpretation
of a will is the ascertainment of the testator's intention. If it upholds
the intention disclosed by the terms of the will in this case, it is
useless; if it does not uphold it, it is equally useless, as it cannot
break the will.'"
In re Estate of Soesbe, 58 Wn.2d 634, 636, 364 P.2d 507 (1961) (quoting
Hayward v. Spaulding, 75 N.H. 92, 71 A. 219 (1908)).
7 Kjosness v. Lende, 63 Wn.2d 803, 389 P.2d 280 (1964); Shufeldt, 130 Wash.
at 261.
8 Kjosness, 63 Wn.2d at 803.
9 Kjosness, 63 Wn.2d at 809-810.
10 Id. at 812.
11 Id.
12 In re Estate of Riemcke, 80 Wn.2d 722, 497 P.2d 1319 (1972).