Court Opinion

ID: 9848814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:27:55.816113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:47.973477
License: Public Domain

Fatzer, J.,
dissents: I am in accord with the court’s holding in the first paragraph of the syllabus that the heirs of Robert S. Jackson, the fife tenant, are to be determined by the statutes of intestate succession, but I cannot agree with the court’s further holding that the heirs so determined take such portions of the real estate as the statutes designate.
Since no one questions the fact that the five children of Robert S. Jackson are his heirs at law, this dissent relates only to whether Mildred Jackson is an heir at law, and if she is, what share of the remainder estate she is entitled to receive.
At common law a spouse was not an heir, only those who were of the blood line of the decedent could be heirs. The surviving husband was entitled to estate by curtesy in his wife’s estate, and the surviving wife had her right of dower in the husband’s reality. In this state curtesy and dower have been abolished, and the rights of surviving spouses are regulated by the statutes of intestate suces*50sion, giving to the survivor one-half of the deceased spouse’s property of which he or she died seized or possessed. (G. S. 1949, 59-502, 59-504, 59-505.) The surviving spouse cannot, perhaps, be said to be an heir in the strict common-law sense of the term, but the statute at least clothes such a spouse with the material attributes of an heir, and places him or her in that relation. (G. S. 1949, 59-504.) An heir at law is simply one who succeeds to the estate of a deceased person. Whether one is an heir at law is determined by statute, and the decisions and statutes of other states with respect to who are heirs, or who inherit, or what share, have little application in this state. Hence, I am in accord with the court’s conclusion that Mildred Jackson is an heir of her deceased husband.
Even though Mildred Jackson is an heir of her husband, it is clear to me that the statutes of intestate succession may not be used either directly or indirectly to award her an undivided one-half interest in the remainder in fee. The testator’s will in the instant case passed the whole estate. Robert S. Jackson took a legal estate and instead of taking the whole estate, he took a life estate. The remainder vested in his heirs in fee simple. The character and extent of the estate which he took was not affected in the slightest degree by the fact that he had a wife who might outlive him. The estate which he took did not survive him. He had no interest capable of inheritance and had no legal or equitable interest in the remainder in fee. After his death, by virtue of the testator’s will, the whole estate vested in fee simple in his heirs and there was nothing to set apart to his widow Mildred Jackson under our statutes of intestate succession. Those statutes refer to an estate capable of inheritance from the husband and do not apply to interests in land which are extinguished and terminated by his death. (Osborn v. Osborn, 102 Kan. 890, 172 Pac. 23.)
The statutes of intestate succession are to be applied as of the date of the death of the life tenant to ascertain his heirs (Jones v. Petrie, 156 Kan. 241, 132 P. 2d 396), and the court, in concluding that Mildred Jackson took an undivided one-half interest in the fee under a per stirpes distribution, is extending the statutes clearly beyond their plain and unambiguous language. While those statutes may be used to determine the persons who are to take the remainder in fee under the testator’s will as the heirs of Robert S. Jackson, it does not follow that they may be used to fix the shares *51which those persons will take. On the contrary, those statutes determine the shares to be taken only where the deceased spouse was the owner of property which was capable of inheritance upon his death. They do not apply to interests in real estate which were extinguished and terminated by the spouse’s death (Osborn v. Osborn, supra), or devised to his heirs under the will of another. There is nothing in the decedent’s will to show that the statutes were to be used to fix the share that each heir of the life tenant would take. That being the case, Mildred Jackson stands simply as another heir of the life tenant and she may only share equally in the remainder in fee with the decedent’s children. She stands in no different relation to the testator’s property than any other heir of Robert S. Jackson and the statutes of intestate succession may not be used to award her an undivided one-half interest in the remainder estate under a per stirpes distribution.
The court refers to a statement in Grossenbacher v. Spring, 108 Kan. 397, 195 Pac. 884, that where lands are devised by will to any person for his life, and after his death to his heirs in fee (not restricted to heirs of his body), such a devise vests a life estate in the person so named and a remainder in fee simple in his statutory heirs. The statement is authority that the statutes of intestate succession may be used to identify the life tenant’s statutory heirs as of the date of his death but does not purport to state, as the court holds in this case, that those statutes may be used in such a case to determine what share the statutory heirs take.
I would reverse the judgment of the district court and direct it to enter judgment that Mildred Jackson, as an heir of the decedent Robert S. Jackson, is entitled to one-sixth of the remainder in fee and that the five children of the decedent are each entitled to an undivided one-sixth interest.