## Facts

- Frank P. Hixon created two inter vivos trusts, largely funded with stock, in connection with a prenuptial agreement with Alice Green.
- Each trust paid income to Alice for life and granted her limited rights to invade principal up to a stated amount.
- Each trust directed that, upon Alice’s death, the remaining principal be distributed to Hixon’s “heirs.”
- Each trust included a reversionary clause providing that if Alice predeceased Hixon, the trust principal would revert to Hixon.
- Hixon died in 1931; Alice survived him and died in 1982.
- If “heirs” were fixed at Hixon’s death, Hixon’s daughters would take the remainders, and the corpus would pass under their wills largely to charitable beneficiaries.
- If “heirs” were determined at Alice’s death, Hixon’s then-living descendants would take the remainders.
- The trustees sought judicial instructions on the proper distribution of trust principal after Alice’s death.

## Issues

1. Whether “heirs” in the trust remainder provisions referred to Hixon’s heirs determined at Hixon’s death or at the death of the life tenant, Alice.
2. Whether the doctrine of worthier title (and related presumptions about gifts to a settlor’s “heirs”) controlled construction of the remainder provisions despite indicia of a different intent.
3. What interpretive approach governs when court-created rules of construction conflict with a settlor’s apparent intent.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate court’s judgment that favored the charitable beneficiaries.
- The court held that “heirs” referred to those persons who would be Hixon’s heirs at the time of Alice’s death, when the life estate ended.
- The court declined to apply the worthier-title presumption as a controlling rule of construction where it would contradict the settlor’s intent.
- The cause was remanded for further proceedings consistent with distributing the remainder to Hixon’s heirs determined at Alice’s death.

## Legal Principles

- The primary objective in construing a trust is to ascertain and give effect to the settlor’s intent, so long as it does not violate public policy.
- Rules of construction are secondary presumptions; they may be disregarded when they would defeat the intent manifested by the instrument and surrounding circumstances.
- When a gift to the settlor’s “heirs” is postponed until the termination of a prior estate (such as a life estate), “heirs” ordinarily refers to those who would be heirs at the termination of that prior estate, absent a contrary indication.
- The doctrine of worthier title functions as a rule of construction in this setting and does not control where the instrument’s structure and circumstances show an intent to identify heirs at a later time.

## Conclusion

The court construed the trusts to determine Hixon’s “heirs” at the life tenant’s death, not at Hixon’s death, and refused to let the worthier-title presumption override the intent shown by the trusts’ postponed remainder and reversion structure.


Harris Tr. & Sav. Bank v. Beach, 118 Ill. 2d 1, 513 N.E.2d 833 (Ill. 1987)