Herrick v. Miller

125 P. 974, 69 Wash. 456, 1912 Wash. LEXIS 933
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 14, 1912
DocketNo. 10410
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 125 P. 974 (Herrick v. Miller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Herrick v. Miller, 125 P. 974, 69 Wash. 456, 1912 Wash. LEXIS 933 (Wash. 1912).

Opinions

Parker, J.

The parties to this action are the children and widow of Dr. P. B. M. Miller, deceased, late of Seattle. The purpose of the action is to obtain a construction of his will and a settlement of all of the property rights of the parties under the will. Dr. Miller died on December 3, 1904, leaving the will here involved, which he had made a few months previous. The only provisions of the will which we need notice in our present inquiry are the following:

“(3) I bequeath to my son, Hubert Livingston Miller, my gold watch and chain, all my medical library, surgical instruments and general surgical equipment of every nature whatsoever.

“(4) I bequeath all the residue of my personal property and effects of every nature whatever, including my separate personal property and my interest in community personal property wheresoever situated, after the payment of my debts, funeral and testamentary expenses as hereinbefore provided, unto my wife, Eva J. Miller, absolutely.

“(5) I give and devise all my real estate of every tenure whatsoever and wheresoever situated, and all interests therein, community and otherwise, of which I shall at my death be seized or entitled to, or of which I shall at my death have power to dispose of by will, unto my wife, Eva J. Miller, and my son, George E. Miller, my executors hereinafter named, and to the survivor of them, and their successors, in trust, to be held by them for the purposes and subject to the provisions hereinafter declared.

“(6) I declare it to be my earnest request and recommendation that, under no circumstances, shall any part of my real property be sold during the lifetime of my said wife, provided, she shall so long continue my widow; but that said property shall be rented and leased as may seem best to my executors and trustees and their successors; and I direct that the net income therefrom shall be paid to my said wife dur[458]*458ing her widowhood and become her absolute property and she shall not be liable to account for any income so paid to or received by her.

“(7) I direct that, after the death or future marriage of my said wife, her successor in the trust and the said George E. Miller or his successor in the trust shall, as soon as practicable thereafter, sell all of my real estate and interests therein hereinbefore devised in trust and convert the same into money, and shall for the purposes aforesaid execute and deliver all such deeds and conveyances as may be necessary to pass the proper title thereto:—and I direct that the money so received from such sale or sales, together with the income received from said real property from and after the death or re-marriage of my said wife, shall be distributed equally, share and share alike, among my children, . . .”

The will appoints Eva J. Miller and George E. Miller, widow and son of the testator, executrix and executor without bonds, and directs the settlement and management of the estate without the intervention of the court, except to admit the will to probate and file an inventory as required by law. Accordingly, in January, 1905, the will was admitted to probate, and an inventory filed by the executor and executrix. All of the property left by Dr. Miller was his interest in the community property of himself and wife, Eva J. Miller. That community property consisted of lot 1 and the north 15 feet of lot 4 in block 48, Terry’s addition to Seattle, which was appraised at $35,000, and personal property consisting of surgical instruments, medical library, office furniture, and household furniture which was appraised at $850. The community real property above described, at the time of the death of Dr. Miller, consisted of a tract of land fronting 75 feet upon the east side of Sixth avenue and 120 feet upon the south side of Marion street, being at the southeast corner of the intersection of that avenue and street in Seattle, together with a hotel building situated upon the westerly portion of the tract, and also a foundation situated upon the easterly portion of the tract upon which they were then contemplating the erection of another building. This property [459]*459is referred to as the “Ross-shire,” that being the name they gave to the hotel building thereon. The management of this property appears to have been left largely if not wholly to Mrs. Miller after the death of Dr. Miller. She had separate funds of her own with which she thereafter erected upon the fundation on the easterly portion of the tract a building at a cost of approximately $12,000. This building and the other one upon the westerly portion of the tract were rented together as a hotel. In May, 1911, in a condemnation proceeding prosecuted by the city of Seattle to acquire the right to damage the Ross-shire property by changing the grade of Sixth avenue, there was awarded to the owners of that property the sum of $12,000 damages, which was accordingly paid into court by the city. The claim of Mrs. Miller to one-half of this money as belonging to her absolutely, and that only one-half thereof belonged to the trust estate, gave rise to this controversy, and resulted in the bringing of this action in June, 1911, by certain of the residuary devisees to settle the property rights of all' parties under the will.

The substance of the prayer of plaintiffs’ complaint is that the will be so construed as to give to Mrs. Miller only the net income from the Ross-shire property and the $12,000 awarded as damages to that property in the condemnation case, reserving the whole thereof to go to the residuary devisees upon the death or remarriage of Mrs. Miller. The theory of this claim of the plaintiffs is that Dr. Miller devised the whole of the Ross-shire property as if it were his separate property; that Mrs. Miller was thereby required to elect between her right to her community interest in that property and her right to the income from the whole thereof under the will, and that she has elected to take under the will and thereby waived her right to assert her community interest. The plaintiffs also prayed in the alternative that in the event the court should decree that they are not entitled to the construction of the will claimed by them, the respective interests of Mrs. Miller and the residuary devisees be finally [460]*460determined, and that the community interest of Mi’s. Miller, if she be decreed to have any such interest, be set apart to her.

The trial court decreed, in substance, that the plaintiffs were not entitled to the construction of the will claimed by them; that Mrs. Miller was not required to elect between her community interest and her rights under the terms of the will; that she is the absolute owner, by virtue of her community right, of an undivided one-half interest in the Ross-shire property, exclusive of the building she erected thereon with her separate funds, and that she is the owner of that building. The court also partitioned the Ross-shire property, with the aid of commissioners appointed for that purpose, between Mrs. Miller and the trust estate, awarding to her the easterly seventy feet on which her building is situated, and to the trust estate the westerly fifty feet together with the building thereon. The court also awarded the $12,000, one-half to Mrs. Miller and one-half to the trust estate, providing, however, that there should be first paid therefrom a mortgage upon the Ross-shire property for $3,600, which had been given to raise funds to pay a community debt incurred by Dr. Miller in his lifetime. Prom this determination of the rights of the parties, the plaintiffs have appealed.

The controlling question in this case is, Was Mrs.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
125 P. 974, 69 Wash. 456, 1912 Wash. LEXIS 933, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/herrick-v-miller-wash-1912.