Chichester Diocesan Fund and Board of Finance Inc v Simpson

A testator must identify the beneficiaries or objects of a testamentary disposition with sufficient certainty. The selection of particular beneficiaries may be delegated only within a sufficiently defined class.

Charitable purposes form an exceptional class because the court can determine and administer them. A power to select objects which may be benevolent but not legally charitable exceeds that exception. Accordingly, a gift for objects described disjunctively as “charitable or benevolent” is void for uncertainty unless the will’s context confines the choice to legally charitable objects.

A testator directed his executors to apply his residuary estate for charitable institutions or other “charitable or benevolent” objects in England selected at their absolute discretion. The executors distributed the estate among institutions which were both charitable and benevolent. Some next of kin subsequently challenged the trust and claimed the residue upon intestacy.

Farwell J held the disposition valid. The Court of Appeal, comprising Lord Greene MR, Clauson and Goddard LJJ, reversed that decision. The institution representing the recipients appealed. The central issue was whether the quoted words confined the executors to one charitable class or authorised selection from the wider class of benevolent objects.

1. Appeal dismissed by a majority of four to one. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Macmillan, Lord Porter and Lord Simonds held that the residuary disposition was void for uncertainty. Lord Wright dissented.

2. Per the Lord Chancellor, Lord Macmillan and Lord Simonds, a testator must dispose of the property by the will and may not leave others to choose the beneficiaries from an indefinite class. The exceptional power to delegate the selection of charitable objects exists because legal charity is a sufficiently ascertainable class which the court can administer.

3. Per the Lord Chancellor, Lord Macmillan, Lord Porter and Lord Simonds, “charitable” was a technical legal term, whereas “benevolent” had a wider and less precise ordinary meaning. The word “or” naturally presented alternative classes. The executors therefore could have devoted the entire fund to benevolent objects which were not legally charitable. Their actual distribution exclusively to charitable objects could not cure the invalidity.

4. Per Lord Simonds, meaning precedes legal effect when a will is construed. An ambiguity may permit a construction which preserves validity, but the court cannot manufacture ambiguity where the language has a clear meaning. Neither the word “other” nor any dominant charitable intention supplied a context capable of converting the disjunctive expression into a single charitable class.

5. Per Lord Porter, each will must be construed as a whole and according to its own language. Nevertheless, the established authorities showed that mixing charitable purposes with indefinite non-charitable purposes invalidated the whole disposition. Decisions sustaining gifts for objects which were both charitable and benevolent were distinguishable because those descriptions operated conjunctively.

6. Lord Wright would have allowed the appeal. In his view, “charitable” and “benevolent” overlapped so extensively, and the word “other” carried forward the charitable description so clearly, that the will identified one class capable of either description. The majority rejected that construction.

1. House of Lords: By a majority of four to one, dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Court of Appeal’s decision that the residuary trust was void for uncertainty.
2. Court of Appeal: Lord Greene MR, Clauson and Goddard LJJ reversed Farwell J and held that the testamentary disposition was invalid.
3. High Court, Chancery Division: Farwell J held the residuary disposition valid.