Case ID: pa_256/html/0619-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pee Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Munich’s Estate.
    
      Decedents’ estates — Election to tafite against will — Forfeiture of right to elect — Adultery■—Insufficient evidence.
    
    Where a widow elected to take against the will of her deceased husband and other parties interested iirthe estate resisted her claim, alleging that she had by adulterous conduct forfeited her right to take against the will, but where the evidence of such improper conduct was entirely insufficient to warrant a finding that it had existed, the claim was properly allowed.
    Argued Jan. 24, 1917.
    Appeal, No. 341, Jan. T., 1916, by Frances Bowers, Executrix, and one of the Residuary Devisees and Legatees, Margaret Munich, Caroline H. Munich and Florian E. Munich, also Residuary Devisees and Legatees under the Will of Joseph E. Munich, Deceased, from decree of O. C. Philadelphia Co., July T., 1915, No. 63, dismissing exceptions to adjudication in Estate of Joseph E. Munich, Deceased.
    Before Brown, C. J., Stewart, Moschzisker, Frazer and Walling, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Exceptions to adjudication. Before Lamorelle, J.
    The facts appear in the opinion of the Supreme Court and in the following opinion of G-ummex, J., on exceptions to adjudication:
    A careful reading of the testimony in this case convinces us that the auditing judge could not have found otherwise than he did, as the facts and circumstances relied upon to establish the guilt of the wife do not justify such a conclusion.
    It seems unnecessary to add anything to what has been said by the auditing judge; it is essential to the exceptants’ case that adultery should be found affirmatively, and failing this, it would benefit no one to discuss what would have been the effect upon the distribution if adultery had been proved.
    
      The exceptions are dismissed, and the adjudication confirmed absolutely.
    The court dismissed the exceptions. Frances Bowers, Margaret Munich, Caroline H. Munich and Florian E. Munich appealed.
    
      Errors assigned were in dismissing the exceptions.
    
      Jules E. Pereyra, for appellants.
    
      Daniel J. Shern, with him Charles A. Boger, for appellee.
    February 26, 1917:
   Pee Curiam,

The appellee is the widow of Joseph E. Munich, who died testate January 2, 1915. Her election to take against his will was resisted in the court below by his executrix and the residuary devisees and legatees, on the ground that she had, by adulterous conduct, forfeited her right to so elect. The adjudicating judge failed to find that she had been guilty of adultery, and our examination of the testimony offered to sustain the charge has satisfied us that no error was committed in failing to find that the accusation had been sustained. The appeal is dismissed, at appellants’ costs, on the brief but all sufficient opinion of the learned court below dismissing the exceptions to the adjudication.