## Facts

- A divorced couple entered a 1937 written trust agreement to fund their minor son Richard’s care, custody, maintenance, support, and education; the father agreed to make periodic payments to a trustee for that purpose.
- Under the agreement, the father was to pay $1,200 per year in monthly installments until Richard entered college (or a similar postsecondary institution), and then $2,200 per year for up to four years while Richard actually attended.
- Richard finished high school on February 5, 1946, was inducted into the U.S. Army on February 6, 1946, and remained in military service during the litigation.
- After February 1, 1946, the father stopped making payments.
- The successor trustee sued in equity to compel payment; the trial court ordered the father to pay, including ongoing future monthly payments continuing through the anticipated completion of a college education.

## Issues

1. Whether the trust agreement required the father to continue support payments while the son was in the U.S. Army after high school and not attending college or living in the mother’s custody.
2. Whether a court of equity could order future payments not yet due and dependent on uncertain future contingencies (including whether and when the son would attend college).

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court reversed the decree to the extent it compelled payments during the son’s military service.
- The court construed the agreement as aimed at supporting the son while in the mother’s custody and funding education upon actual postsecondary attendance; neither circumstance existed while he served in the Army.
- The court held it was improper to order prospective payments not yet due and contingent on future events, whether the bill was treated as one for specific performance or in the nature of declaratory relief.
- The decision did not foreclose the possibility of payment obligations arising if the son later entered qualifying postsecondary education under the agreement’s terms.

## Legal Principles

- A written instrument is construed as a whole to effectuate the parties’ intention as shown by the entire agreement, not isolated clauses.
- When the agreement’s overall purpose indicates a condition to performance, a court may recognize implied conditions consistent with that purpose.
- Support and education payment provisions tied to custody and school attendance may be inoperative when the beneficiary is neither in the contemplated custody arrangement nor attending the contemplated schooling.
- Equity generally will not decree specific performance of obligations not yet due or dependent on uncertain future contingencies, and courts should be cautious about declarations that attempt to fix contingent future rights in advance.

## Conclusion

The court construed the trust agreement to suspend the father’s payment duty while the son was in military service and not in the mother’s custody or attending postsecondary school, and it rejected a decree compelling contingent future payments not yet due.


Spaulding v. Morse, 322 Mass. 149, 76 N.E.2d 137 (1947)