Opinion ID: 2264429
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Heirship

Text: The parties agree that if Ida Brown Bryant was Elise Derricotte's first cousin, she was the sole rightful heir to her estate under District law. The trial court, after receiving testimony and documentary evidence, found that she was. Largely without citing legal authority, the Phillips brothers raise evidentiary objections to some but not all of the proof that Ida Brown Bryant was the same person as Elfrida Brown, born to Joseph and Elizabeth Walker Brown in March of 1907, [3] and therefore the sole surviving first cousin of Ms. Derricotte. None of these objections has merit, and the court's factual finding as to Ms. Bryant's identity is amplyeven overwhelminglysupported by the record. First, a 1975 newspaper obituary for the Phillips brothers' mother, Elizabeth Brown Phillips, written by family members and listing Ida E. Bryant as Elizabeth Phillips' sister, was properly admitted under the pedigree exception to the hearsay rule, see Hill v. White, 589 A.2d 918, 923 (D.C.1991), and likely under the ancient documents rule as well. See 5 Wigmore, Evidence § 1573(a) (Chadbourn rev.1974); Fed.R.Evid. 803(16). Testimony by nieces and nephews of the Phillips brothers about their understanding of Ida Bryant's relation to them was likewise admissible under the pedigree exception. Second, a 1942 social security application in which a person claiming to be Ida Brown Davis asserted that she was born to Joseph I. Brown and Elizabeth M. Walker on March 23, 1907, and a 1968 application by Ida Elfrida Bryant for a replacement social security card using the same social security number as the 1942 application, were both admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. See Super. Ct. Civ. R. 43-I; In re D.M.C., 503 A.2d 1280, 1282-83 (D.C.1986). [4] Third, the Phillips brothers offer no supporting argument or case law for their claim of unfair surprise in the admission, in Ms. Bryant's rebuttal case, of census records from 1910 and 1920 reporting that Joseph and Elizabeth Brown had children including Ida, whose listed age was consistent with a 1907 birth date. See Adkins v. Morton, 494 A.2d 652, 661 (D.C.1985) (scope of rebuttal evidence left to trial court's discretion). [5] Fourth, and in any event, in nonjury cases the reception of inadmissible evidence does not itself constitute reversible error where there is other evidence to support the judge's findings. Bethesda Salvage Co. v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., 111 A.2d 472, 474 (D.C.1955). Even if all of appellants' evidentiary objections were well taken, we would perceive no basis on this record for disturbing the trial court's finding of Ms. Bryant's heirship.