## Facts

- Ellen Donovan executed a will leaving the residue of her estate to Rev. Eleazer M. P. Wells “to distribute” in the manner he thought best to carry out wishes she had expressed or might express to him.
- The will named no beneficiaries and stated no charitable or other purposes for the residue.
- Wells was also nominated executor.
- In equity proceedings, Wells asserted Donovan had orally instructed him (before and after execution) to use the residue for charitable purposes, especially to aid needy persons connected with Saint Stephen’s Mission in Boston.
- The heirs at law did not contest the substance of Wells’s account of Donovan’s oral instructions, but claimed the bequest failed as a matter of law and the residue should pass to them.

## Issues

1. Whether parol evidence may be used to supply the beneficiaries and purposes of a testamentary trust when the will indicates a trust-like duty to “distribute” but does not state the trust’s terms.
2. If the trust terms cannot be proved or enforced, whether the named legatee takes the residue beneficially or holds it for the heirs by resulting trust.

## Decision

- The court held that parol evidence could not be admitted to complete or supply the missing terms of the alleged testamentary trust.
- The will’s language indicated Wells was not intended to take the residue for his own benefit, but to hold it for distribution under the testatrix’s wishes.
- Because the will did not declare the trust’s terms with sufficient certainty and the alleged terms depended on oral statements, the attempted trust failed.
- Wells held the residue on a resulting trust for Donovan’s heirs at law (next of kin), and the heirs were entitled to the beneficial interest.

## Legal Principles

- A testamentary disposition of beneficial interests must comply with will formalities; oral directions cannot be used to create or define beneficiaries and purposes not expressed in the duly executed will.
- In a semi-secret trust (where the will shows the devisee is to act as trustee but omits the trust terms), parol evidence cannot be used to supply the missing terms to defeat the heirs at law.
- When a will shows the transferee was not to take beneficially but the intended express trust fails for lack of validly declared terms, equity imposes a resulting trust in favor of the estate’s heirs.

## Conclusion

Because the will did not state any enforceable trust terms and those terms could not be supplied through oral instructions consistent with testamentary formalities, the purported trust failed and the residuary legatee held the property on a resulting trust for the testatrix’s heirs.


Olliffe v. Wells, 130 Mass. 221 (Mass. 1881)