## Facts

- Arthur Nattans executed a will creating a testamentary trust funded with his shares of stock in a Baltimore company.
- Nattans had children from his marriage to Jennie Nattans and three children from a prior marriage (Emily Herbert, Addie Bachrach, and Samuel Nattans).
- The will allocated separate share blocks of stock to each child and directed the trustee to pay each child the income from that child’s allocated shares.
- If a child died while the trust continued, the income from that child’s shares was to be paid to that child’s children (Nattans’s grandchildren).
- The trust was to terminate upon the death of Nattans’s last surviving child; at termination, the trustees were to divide the trust corpus among the “issue and descendants” of Nattans’s children “per stirpes.”
- Two grandchildren (Harold Herbert and Arthur Bachrach) became income beneficiaries, then died without issue before trust termination; their income interests passed to their estates during the trust term.
- A dispute arose whether those deceased grandchildren’s estates were entitled to share in the distribution of the trust corpus at termination.
- The chancellor construed the remainder clause to distribute the corpus only among descendants living when the trust terminated.

## Issues

1. Whether a testamentary trust remainder directed to be divided “among the issue and descendants” of the testator’s children “per stirpes” includes the estates of grandchildren who predeceased trust termination without issue.
2. Whether, absent clear contrary intent, the membership of the class of “issue and descendants” is determined at trust termination (distribution date) rather than earlier.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed the chancellor’s decree.
- The court held the trust corpus was distributable only to those issue and descendants of the testator’s children who were living at the trust’s termination (the death of the last surviving child).
- The estates of grandchildren who died before termination without issue were not entitled to any share of the trust principal.
- The court treated the remainder clause as a class gift to be ascertained at the distribution date and found no will language showing an intent to vest principal interests earlier.

## Legal Principles

- The controlling rule of will construction is to ascertain and give effect to the testator’s intent from the will as a whole.
- Absent a contrary expression of intent, a direction that a remainder be distributed “per stirpes” among the “issue” or “descendants” of a designated group indicates a class to be determined at the time of distribution.
- “Per stirpes” language generally contemplates representation through living family lines at distribution; a deceased descendant who leaves no issue supplies no line through which the principal can pass.
- A beneficiary’s entitlement to trust income during the trust term does not, by itself, establish a vested right in the trust corpus payable at termination.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that, because the will directed a per stirpes distribution of principal to the “issue and descendants” of the testator’s children upon termination and contained no clear language vesting the principal earlier, the class of remainder beneficiaries was fixed at termination; therefore, grandchildren who died before termination without issue (and their estates) took no share of the corpus.


Weller v. Sokol, 318 A.2d 193 (Md. 1974)