Jeffreys & Ors v Scruton & Ors

In construing a will, the court identifies the testatrix’s intention from the words used in their documentary and factual context, giving legal or technical expressions their established meaning. The court may not improve, perfect or rewrite the will. Extrinsic evidence is admissible under Administration of Justice Act 1982, section 21 only where the language is meaningless or ambiguous, and cannot give words a meaning they cannot bear. A separately expressed trust taking effect on failure of earlier trusts is not thereby an ultimate default beneficiary for those earlier trusts. Its beneficiaries cannot revive a power confined by the will to the failed trusts unless the will clearly provides for that result.

The claim was brought by the personal representatives and trustees of Laura Jeffreys’s will against members of her family. The issue was whether clause 5(c)(iii), which provided a fixed trust for the issue of Laura’s brothers and sisters if the preceding trusts failed, formed part of one composite trust or took effect as a separate trust.

The answer determined whether the trustees could exercise a power in clause 5(a)(ii)(4) to appoint additional beneficiaries. Laura’s only child had predeceased her, and the court had to construe the will in the light of the surrounding circumstances and decide whether extrinsic evidence could be admitted under section 21 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982.

1. Construction and result. The trust in clause 5(c)(iii) was apt to take effect separately from the preceding trusts. The preceding trusts failed on the facts, and the residuary estate was therefore held on the fixed trusts for the issue of Laura’s brothers and sisters. The trustees’ power to appoint additional beneficiaries was not exercisable.
2. The court applied the approach in Marley v Rawlings [2015] AC 129: the intention of the testatrix was to be identified from the natural and ordinary meaning of the words, the will as a whole, its purpose, the known or assumed facts and common sense, while excluding subjective intention. The will was to be construed from the testatrix’s armchair, but the court could not rewrite it. The principle in Re Bailey [1951] Ch 407 required effect to be given to the dispositions actually made.
3. The words referring to failure of the trusts declared by the foregoing provisions had their established legal meaning. They referred to the preceding trust provisions as a whole, including the power to appoint beneficiaries. Clause 5(c)(iii) created a separate fixed trust and did not make its beneficiaries ultimate default beneficiaries capable of validating or resurrecting that power.
4. The will was unambiguous on its face, and no latent ambiguity arose from the surrounding circumstances. Section 21 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982 enlarged the range of admissible evidence but could not contradict the words used or assign them a meaning they could not bear. The court therefore admitted no extrinsic evidence for construction. Even if it had been admissible, the documents did not establish that Laura specifically intended the power to survive failure of the discretionary trusts.
5. The court distinguished the analogy with Re Exeter Settlement [2010] JLR 169. That decision concerned whether a trust lacking a beneficiary could be retrospectively validated by rectification. The present issue was the true construction of this will, and its wording made clause 5(c)(iii) separate from the earlier trusts. The court also held that clause 5(c)(ii), rather than clause 5(c)(iii), supplied the analogous ultimate default provision.
6. It was declared that the trusts in clause 5(a), (b), and (c)(i) and (ii) failed on Laura’s death; the trust fund was and remained held for the class entitled under clause 5(c)(iii); and the power to appoint additional beneficiaries under clause 5(a)(ii) was not exercisable.