Pratt v. Trustees of the Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital

Citations

• 88 Md. 610
• 42 A. 51
• 1898 Md. LEXIS 235

Syllabus

<p>Precatory Trusts — Intention of Testator to Create a Trust —Absolute Gift followed by Words of Recommendation— Uncertainty in Object or Amount— Trusts Void for Uncertainty.</p> <p>The use of words of recommendation and desire in a will, in connection with a devise of property, should not be .construed to create a binding precatory trust unless it appears that the testator intended to create a trust.</p> <p>When a testator gives property absolutely to a devisee, the fact that he subsequently expresses a wish or desire as to the use the devisee should make of the property, is not of itself sufficient to cut down the prior absolute gift and create a trust.</p> <p>No inflexible meaning can be given to any precatory word so that the same effect is accorded to it whenever used in the will.</p> <p>In determining whether precatory words in a will should be construed merely as recommendations by the testator for the guidance of the donee in the use of the property or as creating an obligatory direction as to his dealing with it, the Court considers that when the amount of the property is indefinite and the objects referred to are uncertain, these circumstances are evidence, though not conclusive, that the testator did not intend to create a trust, when he did not employ the formal words usual in the creation of trusts.</p> <p>There is a distinction between a trust void for uncertainty and an uncertainty in the object contemplated by words of recommendation which is only indicative of the absence of an intention to create a trust. In the former case the testator intends to create a trust but it fails for uncertainty in the objects to be benefited, and the next of kin or heirs at law become entitled to the property, while in the latter case the vagueness in the object is a reason for holding that no trust was intended.</p> <p>Testator gave the residue of his estate to the trustees of the Sheppard Asylum upon the “ condition and bargain ” that the name of the corporation sho