## Facts

- Lydia Mannara executed a brief, handwritten will shortly before her death.
- The will left the residuary estate to her “two nephews in trust for their education.”
- The will did not name a trustee and did not state how any supposed trust was to be managed, when it would end, or what would happen to any unused funds.
- Mannara’s brother, acting as the estate’s personal representative, filed a petition seeking construction of the will.
- The brother argued the residuary clause created two separate testamentary trusts, one for each nephew, and asked the court to supply missing terms.
- Specifically, he requested that the court (a) appoint him and another individual as trustees, (b) authorize discretionary payments for education, and (c) set termination of each trust at age 22 with distribution to the beneficiary.
- The nephews were minors, so the Surrogate’s Court appointed a guardian ad litem to represent them.
- The guardian ad litem opposed the petition, arguing that the will failed to create a valid trust and that the nephews should receive the residuary estate directly (with ordinary safeguards for minors).

## Issues

1. Did the will’s residuary gift to the decedent’s “two nephews in trust for their education,” without a named trustee or operative directions, create valid testamentary trusts under New York law?
2. If the trust terms were missing or indefinite, could the Surrogate’s Court supply the requested trustees, powers, and an age-22 termination provision, or must the nephews take the residuary estate outright?

## Decision

- The court held that the will did not create enforceable testamentary trusts based solely on the phrase “in trust for their education,” given the absence of a trustee and the lack of workable administrative and distributive terms.
- The court denied the brother’s request to infer trustees and to add the extensive terms he proposed (including discretionary educational payments and termination at age 22).
- The residuary gift was construed as an outright bequest to the two nephews (in equal shares), with the educational reference treated as too indefinite to operate as a trust.
- The court noted that the nephews’ minority could be addressed through standard methods for protecting minors’ property rather than by judicially drafting a trust instrument.

## Legal Principles

- A valid express trust requires identifiable beneficiaries, identifiable trust property, intent to create a fiduciary relationship, and a trustee with enforceable duties; using the word “trust” alone is not enough.
- A court may appoint a trustee when a trust is otherwise sufficiently expressed but a trusteeship is vacant; however, the court will not create the essential structure of a trust when the instrument fails to supply it.
- Will construction seeks to effect the testator’s intent as expressed in the will’s language, but construction does not permit adding substantive dispositive provisions that the testator did not state.
- Language expressing a purpose (such as education) can be treated as precatory or explanatory when it does not provide an operative scheme for holding, managing, and distributing property.
- When an attempted trust fails for indefiniteness, a court may construe the disposition as an outright gift to the named beneficiaries, while using existing legal mechanisms to safeguard minors’ interests.

## Conclusion

In re Estate of Mannara held that a residuary clause leaving property to “two nephews in trust for their education,” without a named trustee or workable directions for administration, did not establish valid testamentary trusts; the Surrogate’s Court refused to supply trustees, discretionary powers, and an age-22 termination term, and instead construed the residue as passing outright to the nephews subject to ordinary protections for minor beneficiaries.


In re Estate of Mannara, 5 Misc. 3d 556 (2004)