Article February 22, 1913 Issue

The termination of the litigation over the estate of Mrs. Eddy,...

Manchester (N. H.) Union

The termination of the litigation over the estate of Mrs. Eddy, among other things, gives reassurance that when parties enter into a solemn agreement whose terms are drawn by attorneys of high ability, and specifically declared to be fully understood and accepted without reservation, such agreement will prove valid and binding. The story of this matter is familiar. During her lifetime Mrs. Eddy made a settlement with her heirs, making to them the payment direct and in trust of liberal sums of money on the condition that they themselves would not contest or question whatever disposition she might make of her estate at her decease. They accepted the proposition in what seemed to be the strongest and plainest terms that language could express, and received in full the immediate benefit of the financial terms therein contained.

Following her decease, however, and notwithstanding, action was brought contesting and questioning the disposition she had undertaken to make of her estate. Litigation was begun and carried forward in various courts and seemingly upon all the pretexts that able attorneys could devise, even to a bitter attack upon the religion which Mrs. Eddy had founded. As far as had been determined by the courts, the plain purpose of the testatrix had been sustained, when the undermined contentions are withdrawn in order that the terms of the agreement made during her lifetime and her wishes later determined might be fully carried out. It is a warranted conclusion that such would have been the outcome if the litigation had been terminated by court findings rather than by voluntary action.

Gratifying as the outcome is to Christian Scientists, it has the widest possible scope in the reassurance that carefully drawn and fully understood agreements cannot be successfully violated or upset later on by one party to the agreement, and if it shall be undertaken our courts will stand as a firm barrier against such an effort.

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