Beasley v. Linch

174 Okla. 507
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedNovember 5, 1935
DocketNo. 25389
StatusPublished

This text of 174 Okla. 507 (Beasley v. Linch) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beasley v. Linch, 174 Okla. 507 (Okla. 1935).

Opinion

PER. CURIAM.

This is an appeal from the district court of Kingfisher county. The admitted facts in this case are substantially these:

Edward Moran died intestate in the year 1902 a resident of Kingfisher county and left three quarter sections of real property in said county. Edward Moran was survived by three heirs, Ada B. Moran, after-wards Ada B. Linch, his widow, John Oscar Moran and Prank Edward Moran, his sons, who at the death of Edward Moran, each inherited an undivided one-third interest in the three quarter sections of land.

After the death of Edward Moran, his widow, Ada B. Moran, married J. W. Linch, and IJauline M. Linch, Elda R. Linch, and Velma Linch were born of said marriage.

Ada B. Linch died testate in 1917. Her estate consisted of an undivided one>-third interest in the three quarter sections of land which she had inherited from her former husband, Edward Moran. D3y the terms of her will, Ada B. Linch devised her undivided one-third interest in said three quarter see-[508]*508lions of land to the following persons in the following proportions, to wit: J. W. Linch, an undivided four-ninths of ane>-third, or an undivided 4/27 interest; John Oscar Moran, her son, an undivided one-ninth of one-third, or an undivided 1/27 interest therein; to Frank Edward Moran, Pauline M. Linch, Elda It. Linch, and Velma Linch each a 1/27 interest.

The estates of Edward Moran and Ada B. Linch were administered in the county court of Kingfisher county 'and decrees of distribution as to the three quarter sections of land were by said court entered. In the Edward Moran matter an undivided one-third interest in the three quarter sections of land were distributed to each of his heirs, Ada B. Linch, John Oscar Moran, and Framt Edward Moran. In the Ada B. Linch estate matter, distribution of her undivided interest was made in accordance with the terms of the will.

Thereafter John Oscar Moran instituted a partition suit in the district court of Kingfisher county against the other heirs, and the court In its decree in partition decreed the interests of the parties in .the three quarter sections of land to be as follows, to wit:

John Oscar Moran_10/2,7
Frank Edward Moran_10/27
J. W. Linch_4/27
Pauline Linch_1/27
Elda R. Linch_1/27
Velma V. Linch-1/27

Partition was accordingly ordered and commissioners were appointed to make division. They thereupon gave one quarter section to John Oscar Moran, one quarter section to Frank Edward Moran, and the other quarter section to the Linches, with the proviso! that Linch pay to each of the Morans $200. The commissioners’ report was by the court approved and the court set off to the various parties the separate tracts of land.

Frank Edward Moran was awarded by the court in the partition action the following described land: Southwest quarter of section 1, township 15, north, range 6 W. I. M., Kingfisher county; and was the record owner of the same at the time of his death, and it is the land involved in this appeal. At the time of his death, he left surviving him Ruby Beasley (formerly Ruby Moran), his widow, and no children his full brother, John Oscar Moran, and his half brothers and half sisters, the Linch children.

Ruby Beasley was appointed administra-trix of the estate of Frank Edward Moran. She secured a deed from John Oscar Moran to her to. the above-described quarter section of land; thereafter in her final account and petition for distribution, Ruby Beasley contended that upon the death of her husband,. she inherited an undivided one-half interest in and to the said land and that the remaining one-half interest was inherited by the full brother, John Oscar Moran; and that the land was an ancestral estate, and that by reason of her acquiring John Oscar Moran’s interest she prayed the court to distribute the entire interest to her.

The petition for distribution was contested by ithe Linch children, Pauline M., Elda R. and Velma 'Linch, they claiming to be heirs of Frank Edward Moran, deceased, that the estate was an estate of purchase and that they owned an interest in said realty.

Trial was had in the county court and the issues found In favor of Ruby Beasley and John Oscar Moran. The case on appeal in the district court was decided in favor of the contestants and against Ruby Beasley and John Oscar Moran. After an unsuccessful motion for new trial, plaintiffs below, plaintiffs in error herein, bring this appeal and have in all twelve assignments of error.

The consideration of the second error assigned, to wit, that the trial court erred in holding and decreeing that the partition proceedings in the district court of Kingfisher county in the case styled John Oscar Moran v. Frank Edward Moran et al., changed the character of the interest of Frank Edward Moran in the lands herein involved from an ancestral estate to ran estate of purchase, will determine the principal question involved in this cause.

There are only two characters of estate known to our law. An estate is either ancestral or non'ancestral; or, as this court says, there are two modes of acquiring title to property, one by descent or inheritance and the other by purchase or by the act or agreement of the parties. Gray v. Chapman et al., 122 Okla. 130; 243 P. 522. It is admitted by the parties hereto that the undivided one-third interest Frank Edward Moran inherited from his father, Edward Moran in the three quarter section of land, was an ancestral estate before the partition suit.

The defendants in error assume that, although JJTank Edward Moran inherited an undivided one-half interest In 480 acres of land from his father, which was in three [509]*509separate tracts of 160 acres each, one-third of each tract constituted his ancestral estate; that in the land involved in this ease, which is 160 'acres, an undivided one-third interest came to him by inheritance from his father, the other two-thirds interest by purchase. This assumption we think is wrong. Frank Edward Moran inherited an undivided one-third interest in 480 acres of land from his father, or 160 acres. After his father’s death, his mother, Ada B. Linch, died, and by the terms of her will left Frank Edward Moran a 1/9 of her one-third, or a 1/27 undivided interest in and to the 480 acres left by her husband, Edward Moran.

In the order Cor partition (O.-M. 45-46) the .court found and decreed that as to the !4S0 acres involved, Frank Edward Moran owned by inheritance from Edward Moran an undivided one-third interest therein, and in addition, Frank Edward Moran owned an undivided 1/2-7 interest in said lands by inheritance from his mother. Frank Edward Moran then had an undivided one-third plus a 1/27 interest in said lands, or a slightly greater interest than the Linch heirs. This was recognized by the commissioners in partition wherein they gave one farm to Frank Edward Moran, one farm to John Óscar Moran, and the other farm to the Linch heirs, and required Linch to pav each of the Morans $200 to even up their respective interest. (O.-M. 51.)

The defendants contend that the payment of $200 by Linch to Frank Edward Moran constituted a purchase by Frank Edward Moran. With this we cannot agree.

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Bluebook (online)
174 Okla. 507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beasley-v-linch-okla-1935.