Spaulding v. Morse
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
76 N.E.2d 137 (1947)
Relevant factsFree
Morse's (defendant) divorce decree required payments to a trustee for his son Richard's support while in his mother's custody, and separately for college expenses while attending higher education; Richard instead joined the army after high school, and Morse stopped payments, prompting trustee Spaulding (plaintiff) to sue to compel continued payments, which the trial court ordered.
IssueFree
Whether, if a written instrument as a whole suggests that the parties desired a particular result, but the parties did not express that result in formal words, the defect in the instrument may be supplied by implication to effectuate the parties' underlying intention.