Case ID: pa_359/html/0260-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearne,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jones Estate.
    
      May 24, 1948:
    Argued April 16, 1948.
    Before Maxey, C. J., Linn, Stern, Patterson, Stearne and Jones, JJ.
    
      Leon Ehrlich, with him Thomas B. Hall, M. Bernard Hoffman and Ulysses 8. Koons, for appellant.
    
      James Hay Simms, for appellee, was not heard.
   Opinion by

Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearne,

This is an appeal from a decree of an orphans’ court rejecting a claim against a decedent’s estate based on the breach of an alleged oral contract of decedent to will claimant her entire estate. We agree with the learned court below that the evidence failed to establish a contract: Roberts Estate, 350 Pa. 467, 39 A. 2d 592; Cramer v. McKinney et al., Executors, 355 Pa. 202, 49 A. 2d 374. Even if a contract to will the whole or part of an estate had been proved, and a breach shown, the measure of damages is the value of the services rendered and not the estate promised to be given: Graham v. Graham’s Executors, 34 Pa. 475; Neal’s Executors v. Gilmore, 79 Pa. 421; Mary Kauss v. John Rohner, 172 Pa. 481, 33 A. 1016; Byrne’s Estate, 122 Pa. Superior Ct. 413, 186 A. 187; Cramer v. McKinney et al., Executors, supra. No proof was submitted as to the extent of the service rendered and the value thereof.

The decree is affirmed at the cost of appellant.