Ludington v. Patton

99 N.W. 614, 121 Wis. 649, 1904 Wisc. LEXIS 49
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedMay 10, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 99 N.W. 614 (Ludington v. Patton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ludington v. Patton, 99 N.W. 614, 121 Wis. 649, 1904 Wisc. LEXIS 49 (Wis. 1904).

Opinion

MaRsiialx, J.

Tbe questions raised on this appeal must be •solved by tbe mandate of tbis court upon tbe former appeal. 111 Wis. 260, 86 N. W. 511. Tbe function of tbe trial court in tbe rendition of tbe present judgment was limited -strictly to tbe execution of sucli mandate; therefore, no extended discussion of legal questions or citation of authorities need or will be indulged in in rendering this opinion, nor will any attempt be made to determine tbe meaning of tbe mandate by rules for judicial construction, it being supposed that resort to such rules is unnecessary. Tbe course which tbe trial court was directed to take after tbe determination of tbe former appeal was carefully fenced about, and the general features plainly pointed out. Mere details were of •course omitted, as is usual.

In stating tbe account as to tbe homestead in which plaintiff bad a contingent interest as to tbe wbole, and otherwise .a dower interest, tbe entire expense of keeping up tbe insurance was charged to her. ■ That was not warranted by the mandate. In plain language it provided for restoring plaintiff to precisely tbe same situation she would have occupied bad she made her election to take tbe interest in her husband’s estate which belonged to her by law and seasonably been put in possession and enjoyment thereof, she to be •charged with tbe legitimate expenses that would have belonged to her to pay if tbe trustees bad rightfully cared for her property as trustees of an express trust. That included Insurance, of course, but only tbe reasonable cost of protecting her insurable interest, which was limited to tbe value of ber contingent and dower rights. Hartford F. Ins. Co. v. Haas, 87 Ky. 531, 9 S. W. 720; Home Ins. Co. v. Field, 42 Ill. App. 392. Whether in determining tbe mesne profits of realty in assessing tbe damages for tbe wrongful detention •of dower interest or in stating an account between a life tenant and a remainderman, insurance as well as taxes and costs [656]*656of repairs should he deducted from the gross income, we do not deem necessary or proper to decide. So the rule on the subject, to be deduced from Hart v. Hart, 117 Wis. 639, 91 N. W. 890; Bonner v. Peterson, 44 Ill. 253, 261; Welsh v. London Assur. Corp. 151 Pa. St. 607, 617, 25 Atl. 142; Peck v. Sherwood, 56 N. Y. 615; and Harrison v. Pepper, 116 Mass. 288, 44 N. E. 222, cited to our attention, is not material. The rule for this case was settled upon the former appeal. The error in not limiting the insurance expense chargeable to plaintiff on account of her interest in the homestead to such proportion of the total expense of insuring the property as the value of her interest then bore to the entire value, must be corrected.

In adjusting plaintiff’s rights as to other insurable real property than the homestead, the referee charged her one third of the expense thereof. That is not in accordance with the mandate for the reason above stated. If plaintiff’s interest in the realty had been assigned to her seasonably after her husband’s death, she would have received a full third of the rents and profits thereof and been obliged to pay the same proportion of the taxes and repairs. Pier insurable interest would have been limited, manifestly, to the value of her life estate in one third of the property, and, obviously, by the terms of the mandate, that is the limit of credit allowance to the trustees in that regard.

In stating the account as to the so-called Broadway property, the value of the use of plaintiff’s one-third interest in the unimproved land was determined upon the basis of her having such an interest in the land improved as would be equal to a one-third interest therein unimproved. The entire income from the property was divided accordingly, and plaintiff was charged with a like proportion of the insurance. Complaint is made of that, on the theory that it requires plaintiff to bear a part of the insurance on the improvements, while her interest was in the land only. An examination of [657]*657the referee’s reasons for proceeding as be did satisfies ns that such was not his intention. He acted upon the theory that by the improvement of the realty a profit as to the ground was produced, while otherwise it would have been unproductive; and, as the trustees were to be treated as other fiduciaries in that they were not to be permitted to make a profit off their cestui que trust, they were charged with the value of the use of the realty to them, the idea being that the value of such use was the total rent received less insurance, taxes, and repairs. The net rent was apportioned between the value of the realty separate from the improvements, and the value of the improvements, and one third of the former was granted to plaintiff. Plaintiff’s counsel do not appear to have objected to the general method adopted for determining the value of the ground rent. It seems clear that, if the method adopted is to stand, the treatment of the insurance matter is a proper part of it. It is quite likely that the referee adopted such method because under the mandate the trustees were not allowed to make a profit off of plaintiff’s property, which they might have done, probably would have done, if they had been charged merely with ground rent, the amount thereof being established in the usual way.

Complaint is made because of the treatment of a $4,500 mortgage on property in Chicago, in which plaintiff was entitled to a one-seventh interest under the mandate of this court. There seems to have been but one legitimate way to deal with that, unless plaintiff consented to be a party to the efforts of the trastees to realize thereon otherwise than by enforcing the securities in the ordinary way; and that was to charge the trustees with one seventh of the value of such securities as of the time plaintiff’s interest therein should have come to her in the regular course of the administration of her husband’s estate. The mandate expressly provided for plaintiff’s having the property which would have so come to her in specie, or its equivalent in money. That language [658]*658was plainly used to tlie end that plaintiff might secure property of the estate as the same existed at the time of the death of her husband, so far as practicable, and that otherwise an equivalent in money might he rendered to her, thus putting her in the same position she would have occupied had she received the property when it should have reached her in the due course of the settlement of her husband’s estate. Proof ought to have been made of the value of the $4,500 mortgage at the close of the executorship period and one seventh thereof charged to the trustees at that time, the same to bear interest thereafter with other funds held by the trustees, belonging to the plaintiff, down to the final closing of the account.

In stating the account, yearly payments to the plaintiff were deducted from the principal sum due her at the time she received such payment, though there was accrued interest out of which the same might have been paid in whole or in part. That was a departure from the command of the mandate awarding to the plaintiff the'benefits that would have come to her had she taken regularly under the statute and as of the time such benefits would in that event have reached her in possession, and requiring her to account for money or property received by her, and “as of the time of the receipt thereof.” The language of the mandate in respect thereto seems to us entirely unambiguous.

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Bluebook (online)
99 N.W. 614, 121 Wis. 649, 1904 Wisc. LEXIS 49, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ludington-v-patton-wis-1904.