Court Opinion

ID: 9540558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:17:34.465105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:59.643922
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The respondent contends that the petitioner admits in his petition that there was an estate in administration, of which the respondent was presently executor, and that this amounted to an admission that the deceased executrix did not assent to delivery of the property to the life tenant. It is true the will appointed the respondent executor “if for any reason my said wife, herein appointed executrix, should become incapacitated, or decline to act as such and/or in the event of death,” and the plaintiff sued him as executor of the last will and testament of T. P. Rogers. The contentions of the parties in this case are somewhat vague, *373but we understand the ground of the petition to be that the defendant has been appointed as executor of the testator’s will and has improperly made some sales of property in the testator’s estate. We do not construe the pleadings to admit that the respondent is lawfully in possession of any of the testator’s property.
This court does not have jurisdiction to decide upon the construction of a will. Constitution of the State of Georgia, Art. VI, Sec. II, Par. IV (Code Ann. § 2-3704). However, we are of the opinion that the respondent’s contention that the testator’s widow had power as executrix, but not as life tenant, to dispose of the testator’s property for her support is not sound. In the item of the will conferring powers on the executrix, the power to sell property without notice or order of court is limited by the provision that “it be necessary to provide funds for her support and maintenance during her lifetime.” If the will were construed to establish a trust in which the executrix was trustee and the testator’s widow beneficiary, the trust would not be effective because the trustee and beneficiary would be the same person. To us it appears that the testator’s widow as life tenant had the power to dispose of the entire estate for her support. And it seems to us that under this will the only authority the executrix had after paying claims of creditors was to deliver the property remaining to herself as life tenant. Therefore, the only need for the estate to be in the hands of the widow, in the capacity of executrix, at her death was that there were claims of creditors against the testator then unpaid. The executor’s return shows no such claims, but only claims that the executor makes individually for payments to or expenses incurred for the widow since the testator’s death, which under Henderson v. Sapp, 156 Ga. 768, supra, are not recoverable. The pleadings show that the will was probated 15 years before the death of the testator’s appointed executrix. This fact creates a presumption that the executrix had assented to the devise of the life estate. Code § 113-802; Shipp v. Gibbs & Spence, 88 Ga. 184 (14 SE 196); Holcombe v. Stauffacher, 201 Ga. 38, 41 (38 SE2d 818); McGahee v. McGahee, 204 Ga. 91, 94 (48 SE2d 675); Thornton v. *374Hardin, 205 Ga. 215, 217 (52 SE2d 841). The respondent’s pleading and return allege no facts contradicting this presumption.

We adhere to the judgment of reversal.