Orthopaedic Hosp. v. Sec. First Nat'l Bank

HERNDON, J. Orthopaedic Hospital appeals from a decree determining the persons entitled to distribution of decedent’s estate. This decree avoids a charitable bequest to Orthopaedic Hospital of a remainder interest in the decedent’s estate. As its sole assignment of error appellant contends that ‘ ‘ The trial court erred in presently determining to whom the trust funds remaining at the death of the life [305]tenants shall be distributed and should instead have reserved jurisdiction to determine that question only at the termination of the intervening life estates.” Such contention is without merit.

The decedent, Matilda E. Proctor, died on August 27, 1964, leaving a holographic will dated five days earlier which subsequently was admitted to probate. By the terms of this will decedent made certain small specific bequests and then directed that the remainder of her estate be converted into cash and divided into two equal shares to be held in trust. One trust was for the benefit of Mae A. Proctor, sister of decedent, and the other was for John Stevenson, surviving husband of a previously deceased sister of decedent. Each beneficiary was to receive $150 per month from his trust during his lifetime and upon his death the corpus of his trust would go to augment the corpus of the trust of the survivor who would continue to receive $150 per month during his lifetime. The will further provided that upon the death of the surviving life beneficiary the funds remaining in the trust estate were to go to appellant, a charitable corporation within the provisions of section 41 of the Probate Code.1

By their statements of interest filed herein Mae A. Proctor, decedent’s sister, and Helen Proctor Lingo, daughter [306]of decedent’s predeceased brother, both contested appellant’s right to receive the remainder interest specified in decedent’s will by reason of its having been executed less than 30 days before the death of the testator. Since the undisputed facts necessarily invoked the provisions of section 41 of the Probate Code the trial court properly sustained contestants’ position.

While the trial court’s determination that upon the death of the survivor of the life beneficiaries the residue of the trust estate “shall go and be distributed, share and share alike, to the heirs or devisees of Mae A. Proctor and to Helen Proctor Lingo, if living at the time of death of the survivor of said beneficiaries, or to her heirs or devisees” might be a questionable declaration in so far as it affects the immediate rights of Mrs. Proctor and Mrs. Lingo, it presents nothing of which appellant may properly complain. We perceive no tenable basis for appellant’s contentions on this appeal.