Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/284/493.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 07:00:59+00:00

Document:
Mr. A. G. C. Bierer, Jr., of Guthrie, Okl., for petitioners.
Lee Ray Jackson, a soldier in the United States Army, received a certificate of insurance on his life, issued by the United States through the Bureau of War Risk Insurance on September 5, 1918. His wife, Mary Lucinda Jackson, was named as beneficiary. He died intestate March 21, 1921, a resident of Craig county, Okl., leaving him surviving his wife and a son named James Lee Boy Jack- [284 U.S. 493, 494] son, a minor child about seven months old. In March, 1922, the child died, of course, intestate; and in March, 1923, the widow died intestate, in the meantime having married Charley Singleton, one of the petitioners. No part of the insurance due under the certificate was paid during the lifetime of the insured or beneficiary; but the sum accrued between March 31, 1921, and March 30, 1923, has since been paid to the administrator of the estate of Mary Lucinda Jackson, who, at the time of her death, was Mary Lucinda Singleton. The amount of insurance due to the insured on account of permanent disability has been paid to the administrator de bonis non of the estate of Lee Ray Jackson. The remaining installments of the life insurance were commuted, and the sum thereof, fixed by the War Risk Bureau, was also paid to the administrator last named. Such payments of the disability insurance and the sum of the commuted installments were authorized by the Veterans' Bureau and the administrator directed to distribute the amounts in accordance with the intestacy laws of the state of the insured's last legal residence; an award in favor of the administrator in each case having previously been made. The respondents, Edith Cheek, nee Jackson, and Jewel Braziel, nee Jackson, are sisters, and Emmett Jackson is a brother of Lee Ray Jackson. Neither his father nor mother survived him. George Davis and Maggie Davis are the parents of Mary Lucinda Singleton, but neither they nor Charley Singleton are blood kin to the insured.
During her lifetime Mary Lucinda Jackson administered the estate of Lee Ray Jackson, and upon her final report the court having probate jurisdiction found that she was entitled to all of the estate of the deceased Lee Ray Jackson, one-half in her own right, and the other one- half in the right of the minor child above named. A decree of heirship to that effect was duly entered. [284 U.S. 493, 495] In the administration following the death of Mary Lucinda Singleton and the infant son of Lee Ray Jackson, the same court determined that petitioners were entitled to the disability insurance which accrued before the death of the insured, but that respondents were entitled to the commuted value of the insurance falling due after the death of the beneficiary, holding that the commuted balance of such insurance was payable to the estate of the insured, but vested in the heirs next surviving within the permitted class of beneficiaries designated by the War Risk Insurance Act of 1917, c. 105, art. 4, 402, 40 Stat. 398, 409, as amended by the Act of 1919, c. 16, 13, 41 Stat. 371, 375, and by the World War Veterans' Act of 1924, c. 320, 300, 303, 43 Stat. 607, 624, 625 (38 USCA 511 note, 514 note). The case was appealed to a state district court, where a different judgment was rendered. From that judgment an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, where it was twice heard. That court first sustained the petitioners' contention. Subsequently, upon rehearing, it held in favor of the respondents in respect of the commuted installments accruing after the death of the beneficiary, and in favor of petitioners as to those accruing before her death, following a decision of the Supreme Court of Kentucky in Sutton's Executor v. Barr's Administrator, 219 Ky. 543, 293 S. W. 1075, in which that court had decided that the heirs of the insured in being at the time of the death of the beneficiary took the property, and not those who were heirs at the time of the death of the insured. 1 (Okla.) 7 P.(2d) 140.
By the first Oklahoma decision the doctrine of the Kentucky case, just cited, was expressly disapproved; and, following the view of a number of other state decisions to the contrary, it was held that the decree of the county [284 U.S. 493, 496] court in the original administration of the Jackson estate fixed the parties entitled to inherit all his estate, 'whether the assets were then in the hands of the administrator, or later came into the possession of an administrator de bonis non'; and that, when the widow died, these assets became assets of her estate, to be distributed among her heirs. By the second Oklahoma decision this was reversed, upon the authority of the very case which had been distinctly rejected in the first decision.
The amendment, in express terms, was made retroactive so as to take effect as of October 6, 1917, a provision undoubtedly within the power of Congress, for the reasons stated by this court in White v. United States, 270 U.S. 175 , 46 S. Ct. 274.
[ Footnote 1 ] But see Mefford v. Mefford, 231 Ky. 127, 21 S.W.(2d) 151, and Mason's Adm'r v. Mason's Guardian, 239 Ky. 208, 39 S.W.(2d) 211, 213-214, which seem to overrule Sutton's Executor v. Barr's Administrator.
[ Footnote 3 ] Cases in accord with the text: In re Young's Estate (Cal. App.) 1 P.( 2d) 523, 525; Garland v. Anderson, 88 Colo. 341, 346 et seq., 296 P. 1023; Condon v. Mallan, 58 App. D. C. 371, 372, 30 F.(2d) 995, 996; Tolbert v. Tolbert, 41 Ga. App. 737, 154 S. E. 655; In re Estate of Pivonka, 202 Iows, 855, 858, 211 N. W. 246, 55 A. L. R. 570; Robbins, Petition of, 126 Me. 555, 140 A. 366; Woodworth v. Tepper, 152 Md. 332, 334, 136 A. 536, 55 A. L. R. 578; In re Dempster's Estate, 247 Mich. 459, 462-464, 226 N. W. 243; Williams v. Eason, 148 Miss. 446, 454-455, 114 So. 338, 55 A. L. R. 574; Matter of Storum, 220 App. Div. (N. Y.) 472, 476, 221 N. Y. S. 771; Trust Company v. Brinkley, 196 N. C. 40, 44, 144 S. E. 530; In re Estate of Pruden, 199 N. C. 256, 154 S. E. 7; Re Root, 58 N. D. 422, 428, 226 N. W. 598; Palmer v. Mitchell, 117 Ohio St. 87, 93, 158 N. E. 187, 55 A. L. R. 566; Ogilvie's Estate, 291 Pa. 326, 331-334, 139 A. 826; Nat'l Union Bank v. McNeal, 148 S. C. 30, 37, 145 S. E. 549; Whaley et al. v. Jones et al., 152 S. C. 328, 333 et seq., 149 S. E. 841; Moss v. Moss, 158 S. C. 243, 246, 155 S. E. 597; Wade v. Madding, 161 Tenn. 88, 93 et seq., 28 S.W.(2d) 642; Eblen v. Jordan, 161 Tenn. 509, 515, 33 S.W.(2d) 65; Battaglia v. Battaglia (Tex. Civ. App.) 290 S. W. 296, 298; Turner v. Thomas (Tex. Civ. App.) 30 S.W.(2d) 558; In re Hogan's Estate (Utah) 297 P. 1007, 1008; Price v. McConnell, 153 Va. 567, 572, 149 S. E. 515; Stacy v. Culbertson ( Va.) 160 S. E. 50, 51; Estate of Singer, 192 Wis. 524, 527, 213 N. W. 479.
Cases either directly or apparently to the contrary: Sutton's Executor v. Barr's Administrator, 219 Ky. 543, 293 S. W. 1075; Sizemore v. Sizemore's Guardian, 222 Ky. 713, 2 S.W.(2d) 395 (the later Kentucky cases of Mefford v. Mefford, 231 Ky. 127, 21 S.W.(2d) 151, and Mason's Adm'r v. Mason's Guardian, 239 Ky. 208, 39 S.W.(2d) 211, 213, 214, apparently disagree with the earlier view); In re Estate of Hallbom, 179 Minn. 402, 229 N. W. 344; Tax Comm. v. Rife, 119 Ohio St. 83, 162 N. E. 390; Fisher's Estate, 302 Pa. 516, 153 A. 736; In re Cross' Estate, 153 Wash. 459, 278 P. 414.

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