Luenenborg v. Luenenborg

259 N.W. 649, 128 Neb. 624, 1935 Neb. LEXIS 81
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 29, 1935
DocketNo. 29169
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 259 N.W. 649 (Luenenborg v. Luenenborg) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Luenenborg v. Luenenborg, 259 N.W. 649, 128 Neb. 624, 1935 Neb. LEXIS 81 (Neb. 1935).

Opinion

Paine, J.

This is a suit for the construction of a will, arising because of errors in the description of the real estate.

At the beginning of the trial a stipulation of facts was entered into, as follows: “It is stipulated by and between the parties hereto that Henry Luenenborg, Sr., is dead, that the heirs are correctly named in the petition; that the testator was the owner of the northwest quarter of section 2, township 14, range 11 in Douglas county) Nebraska, and the same was all of his real estate at the time of his death; that Bertha Luenenborg, defendant, is the testator’s widow; that she has elected to take under the statute and not under the will in the probate proceedings in the county court of Douglas county, Nebraska, and is vested with an undivided one-fourth of the real estate in fee simple by virtue of her said election, she being a second wife and not the mother of all the children of the testator; that the will of Henry Luenenborg is correctly set forth in the petition, and is hereby made a part of the record in lieu of the original will.”

The evidence discloses that the testator, the owner of the 160 acres of land described above, had lived on this land for about 20 years, although he had owned the property for 30 years. This whole 160-acre tract was farmed [626]*626by one of his sons, and rent paid therefor, the father assisting in farming. There were two sets of improvements on the farm. One near the northwest corner, where the father, being the testator, lived, consisted of a house, a barn, a chicken house, and a toilet, which was all fenced in to keep the chickens, horse, and cow off the rest of the farm. The son occupied a complete set of farm buildings, located in the northeast part of the quarter. The testator had been married twice, and there were twelve children by the two marriages.

The deceased having- sent word that he was sick and wanted to make his will, an old friend and distant relative, Rudolph Blum, brought out a typewriter and a blank form for a short will, being written on blank No. 76 of the Huffman’s General Supply House, and putting this blank in the typewriter he drew up a will, which was duly signed by the testator. All of the discussion between the scrivener and the testator was in the low German language. Certain evident errors were made in writing the will, upon which this appeal is based. Some errors may be due to the fact, as testified by the scrivener, that he is not fluent in the use of the English language. In explaining the drafting of the will, he testified: “I wrote it down aa he said it, and afterwards I said, have you got a tax receipt so we can get the description ? He said, I don’t need any, I will give you the description right out of my mind, and that is the way I put it down, the way he told me.”

The second paragraph of the will, being the first which is in dispute, reads as follows in the photostatic copy of the original will as attached to the briefs: “To my wife Bertha Luenenburg, the west 1/2 of Sec. two township Fourteen and Range Eleven North west Quarter, to have and to hold until her death, then to be divided equally amonst the children.” This clause is in controversy for the reason that it gives to the wife the west half of the section, when the testator only owned the northwest quarter thereof. The words “northwest quarter” are inserted out of the place where they should be, and there is a state[627]*627ment in the testimony of the scrivener that that portion of the description would be given toward the last of the sentence in speaking in low German, and that he wrote it down just the way it was given to him. In this opinion it is not necessary to pass on this disputed clause since the widow elected to take under the law rather than under the will, and being the second wife of the testator she is entitled under the law to a fee title to an undivided one-fourth interest therein.

We come now to the clause reading as follows: “To Henry Luenenburg Jr. I bequeath the east 1/2 of See. (2) two (14) Township. Range (II) He is to pay Ten (10) Dollars each year To Mary, Tena, Anna, John, Will, and Frank, Luenenburg, as long as they are alive.” This clause gave the trial court, as well as this court, considerable difficulty.

In the stipulation it is set out that the testator owned all of the northwest quarter of section 2, and that he did not own any other real estate. If the widow had not elected to take under the law, we have shown that the fact that the words “northwest quarter” were placed out of their usual order would not have interfered with reaching the conclusion that the testator intended to give the widow the west half of his northwest quarter, and this would leave, as the only land that the testator could have in mind, the east half of that northwest quarter, being all of the land that he owned after giving the widow the west half of the same quarter.

It is one of the rules for construing a will that the intention of the testator, as manifested by the words of the writer, in connection with all the surrounding circumstances, must be carried into effect, provided that in so doing no rule of law is violated. Worley v. Wimberly, 99 Neb. 20. It has further been held that it will be presumed that the testator intended to dispose of his entire estate unless the contrary is apparent from the will itself. Jones v. Hudson, 93 Neb. 561.

In the case of Pemberton v. Perrin, 94 Neb. 718, Ann. [628]*628Cas. 1915B, 68, this court had before it a will which described 40 acres of land as lying in range 9, which the testator did not own, and parol evidence disclosed that he did own the identically described 40 acres of land lying in range 10, and it was held that the testator’s intention was to devise the land that he owned, and that the mistake of inserting “9” instead of “10!’ was the mistake of the scrivener who wrote the will. See Will of Boeck, 160 Wis. 577, L. R. A. 1915E, 1008; Seebrock v. Fedawa, 33 Neb. 413.

In the case at bar, the scrivener says the testator told him that he owned the northwest quarter, and that he wanted the west half to go to his wife and the east half to go to Henry Luenenborg, Jr. It is argued by the appellants that the lower court erred, both in admitting this testimony of the scrivener and in inserting words into an unambiguous clause in the will which were not there, insisting that the trial court apparently attempted to arrive at the supposed intent of the testator, and that parol evidence is not admissible to supply omissions in a will. Taylor v. Maris, 90 N. Car. 619.

We have a very recent decision in which this court has rejected testimony of the scrivener showing that the testator intended to insert in a paragraph the name of his wife, and held: “Where a testator, in a clause of his will devising real and personal property, omits the beneficiary either by name or by any other reference, and nowhere in the will is there any means of discovering the identity of the intended beneficiary, parol or extrinsic evidence cannot be received to determine that fact.” In re Estate of Wirsig, ante, p. 297.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
259 N.W. 649, 128 Neb. 624, 1935 Neb. LEXIS 81, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/luenenborg-v-luenenborg-neb-1935.