In Re Widener's Estate

1925 OK 131, 240 P. 608, 112 Okla. 54, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 533
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 17, 1925
Docket15131
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 1925 OK 131 (In Re Widener's Estate) 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
In Re Widener's Estate, 1925 OK 131, 240 P. 608, 112 Okla. 54, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 533 (Okla. 1925).

Opinion

Opinion by

LOGSDON, C.

Respondents have assigned six grounds of error in the petition in error, but in the view taken of the ease here it will only be necessary to consider the sixth assignment, which is that the trial court erred in overruling the motion of respondents for a new trial. The twelfth ground of the motion for new trial reads:

‘‘The judgment of the court herein is contrary to law.”

Administration proceedings were pending in the county court of Pawnee county upon the estate of James Widener, deceased, of which George W. Reynolds was administrator. In that proceeding, and on July 23, 1923, the widow of James Widener filed her petition praying for an order of the county court making her an allowance as such widow, that it determine the amount and duration of such payments, and that it order the administrator to pay the same. August 7, 1923, respondents filed what they denominated a “special appearance and motion to dismiss.” The first ground of the motion attacked the service of notice in the proceeding, which was a proper ground for special appearance, though its validity in the instant case is not here determined. The second ground of the motion was a plea of res adjudicata based on a judgment of the district court of Pawnee county in cause No. 4547, wherein respondents were plaintiffs and George W. Reynolds, administrator, Clarence Barnes, and petitioner herein were defendants. This plea of res adjudicata involved the merits of petitioner’s claim to an allowance as widow and invoked the jurisdiction of the county court to determine that fact. It required the court to hear evidence and to determine therefrom whether the widow’s right to an allowance from decedent’s estate was directly in issue or necessarily involved in the 'adjudication in cause No. 4547. McDuffie v. Geiser Mfg. Co., 41 Okla. 488, 138 Pac. 1029; Webb v. Vaden, 75 Okla. 288, 183 Pac. 480; Cressler v. Brown, 79 Okla. 170, 192 Pac. 417; Bruner v. Bearden, 80 Okla. 154, 195 Pac. 117. This constituted a general appearance by respondents regardless- of the merits of the other grounds of the motion. Nichols & Shepard Co. v. Baker, 13 Okla. 1, 73 Pac. 302; Haynes v. City Nat. Bank of Lawton, 30 Okla. 614, 121 Pac. 182; City Nat. Bank v. Sparks, 50 Okla. 648, 151 Pac. 225; Ed- *56 monston v. Porter, 65 Okla. 18, 162 Pac. 692.

The county court sustained, tlie plea of res adjudicata and dismissed tlie widow’s petition for an allowance. Petitioner duly perfected Iter appeal to tlie district court of Pawnee county on both questions of law and questions of fact. In that court respondents filed an answer which raised the same question of jurisdiction and former adjudication as had been raised by ithe motion in the county court. Therefore, the only question to be considered here is whether the trial court erred as a matter of law in denying respondent’s plea of res adjudi-cata, and in granting an allowance to the widow and fixing the amount.

Essential elements to constitute a good plea of res adjudicata, and which must be pleaded and proved, are four, and are thus defined in Ratcliff-Sanders Grocer Co. v. Bluejacket Merc. Co., 63 Okla. 298, 164 Pac. 1142:

“1. Identity in the thing sued for (or subject-matter of the suit) ; 2. Identity of the cause of action; 3. Identity of persons or parties to the action; 4. Identity of the quality in the persons for or against whom the claim is made.”

In cause No. 4547 the amended petition upon which the case was tried set up four causes of action. It was an original action in the district court, and not a probate proceeding on appeal. The first cause of action was to establish and have the court declare a trust in the estate of James Widener, deceased, in favor of plaintiffs to the extent of the value of certain property alleged to have been owned- by* the mother of plaintiffs, who was James Widener’s first wife. It was alleged that he received and retained this property after her death and refused to account to plaintiffs for their interest therein.

The second cause of action was to establish an executed oral contract alleged to have been entered into in 1903 or 1904 between plaintiffs and their father, James Widener, and to have the court decree specific performance thereof. It was alleged that by this contract Widener agreed, for a consideration fully performed, to make a will devising and bequeathing to plaintiffs all of his property, both real and personal, then owned by him or which he might thereafter acquire. It asked for an accounting by the widow, his second wife, of all property owned and received by him from any source during the existence of his second marriage. It sought to impress a trust on all property of the widow and of her married son, Clarence Barnes, and sought to enjoin them and the administrator from conveying or disbursing any property or funds, which were all alleged to belong to the estate of James Widener, deceased.

The -third cause of action alleged an an-tenuptial contract between James Widener and Minnie B. Green, who became his second wife and widow. It was charged that this contract was entered into fraudulently by Minnie B. Green in violation of the rights of plaintiffs under their oral contract with James Widener. It asked that this antenuptial contract be canceled and declared void, and that the widow be required to account to plaintiffs for all property and money received from James Widener under the terms thereof.

The fourth cause of action was based on the same antenuptial contract which was asked to be declared void in the third cause of action, but in the fourth cause of action the terms of -the contract were sought to be upheld and the court for that reason was asked to deny the widow’.s right to repudiate this contract and to elect to take her share of the estate as widow under the laws of descent and distribution of this state. It was also asked that the widow be enjoined from prosecuting her claim to an interest in the estate as such widow.

Defendants’ answer in that case traversed the allegations in each of the four causes of action.

It is readily apparent that no issue was raised in that case as to the right of the widow to an allowance during the process of administration. Nor could such an issue have been presented in an original action in the district court, because the allowance to the widow is a matter of probate procedure, of which the county court has exclusive original jurisdiction. Const., art. 7, sees. 12, 13, 16; Scott v. McGirth, 41 Okla. 520, 139 Pac. 519; Vinson v. Cook, 76 Okla. 46, 184 Pac. 97.

On the trial of that case plaintiffs dismissed their second cause of action. The trial court made findings of fact in that case, in substance, that the oral contract between plaintiffs and James Widener in 1903 was upon sufficient consideration, was fully executed by plaintiffs, and was therefore valid and binding, but found further that plaintiffs, in March, 1915, instituted an action against James Widener to establish similar rights under an oral contract made in 1893 (Wheeler et al. v. Widener et al., 75 Okla. 292, 183 Pac. 407), and that in that action they did not assert any rights under the 1903 contract. Upon these facts the *57 trial court concluded, as a matter of law, as follows:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1925 OK 131, 240 P. 608, 112 Okla. 54, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 533, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-wideners-estate-okla-1925.