Court Opinion

ID: 9565489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:22:26.904181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:42.094270
License: Public Domain

*703WOOD (Parker), J.
I dissent, except as to the statements in the last paragraph relating to comments in appellant’s brief. Plaintiff had a final judgment, based upon written contracts, that she was entitled to $450 a month during her life from the estate of Joseph B. Dabney, husband of defendant. One of the contracts, the one for $350 a month, was signed also by this defendant. The $40,716, required to be deposited, was security for the payment of the monthly instalments as they accrued. Any part of the deposit remaining at the death of plaintiff was to be paid to the beneficiaries of the estate. The order for said deposit was made in 1933, eight years before the time the deposit would be exhausted. Obviously, owing to the nature of the obligation, there was no way of determining the amount which would be necessary to pay plaintiff. The judge, who estimated the time plaintiff would live, attempted, in the exercise of his discretion, to fix an amount which would be fair to the beneficiaries by not impounding too much, and fair to the plaintiff by not exacting too little. He could have required a deposit, far greater than he did require, and thereby have made certain that the fund would not be depleted during plaintiff’s life. By not requiring a far greater deposit, more assets were available for distribution and this defendant, the principal beneficiary, who received upon distribution more than a million dollars, has had the use of the additional amount that could have been held by the court as adequate security for the payments to plaintiff. Only time could answer whether the deposit was sufficient in amount. An appeal by plaintiff from the judgment fixing the amount of the deposit on the ground that the amount was inadequate would have been futile, inasmuch as the fixing of an amount rested within the discretion of the trial court, the amount was substantial, and there was no abuse of discretion. Depositing the amount, required by the court, was not in fact payment of the obligation to plaintiff. It would have been payment only in the event plaintiff died before the fund was exhausted. The fund has been exhausted, plaintiff is still living, and has not been paid. Defendant has benefited by reason of the mistake of the court in not withholding an adequate amount of the estate to assure payment to plaintiff. By reason of the deposit she received an earlier and larger distribution and has had the use thereof over the intervening several years. The assets which could have been held in trust by the court for plaintiff were dis*704tributed principally to defendant, who was a party to the $350 contract which created the main obligation to plaintiff. The contract which she signed (as well as the other one) stated that it “shall be a binding obligation on our estate, and upon our heirs, executors and administrators.1 ’ She was not misled. She took a fund upon distribution, which could have been held in trust by the court for plaintiff, with knowledge of the written contracts and the judgment, and with knowledge that the deposit might not be sufficient to pay plaintiff for life in accordance with the provisions of the contracts and judgment. The defendant is in quite a different position from the usual distributee who receives a fund after a deposit is made to cover a contingent claim, the amount of which is capable of definite ascertainment. Plaintiff has suffered detriment and defendant has gained advantages under circumstances wherein plaintiff did not have an adequate remedy. In equity it should be regarded that defendant holds in trust sufficient of the distributed assets to pay plaintiff’s unsatisfied judgment.
It is my understanding that the matter of Guardianship of Cornas, (1937) 8 Cal. (2d) 347 [65 P. (2d) 784], is an authority that funds of an estate may be impounded for the purpose of making monthly payments on an obligation which is not capable of definite ascertainment, but it is not my understanding that it is an authority that the amount impounded constitutes payment of the obligation.
In my opinion the judgment should be affirmed.
Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied November 30, 1942.