Court Opinion

ID: 9859199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 19:13:11.39847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:09:26.629155
License: Public Domain

The following opinion was filed September 13, 1955:
Per CuRIam
{on motion for rehearing). Appellant complains that the decision in this case failed to deal with the question whether gratuities received by Mrs. Landauer from the defendant corporations were detrimental to the interests of the other trust beneficiaries.
The gratuities referred to were found by the trial court, after considering exhaustive evidence on the subject, to be neither improper nor excessive. For some years prior to decedent’s death Mrs. Landauer had, without compensation, assisted her husband in the management of the businesses and after his death she continued to participate in such management, likewise without compensation. The trial court found that her services were competent and valuable and that the gratuities were entirely justified as in lieu of any widow’s allowance or compensation for said services. Under all the circumstances we find no error in the trial court’s determina*213btion of the question. All the competent evidence in the record supports it and appellant failed to show any reason why it should not have been made.
Appellant points to language of this court in Estate of Landauer (1953), 264 Wis. 456, 59 N. W. (2d) 676, to the effect that if any advantages gained by Mrs. Landauer personally in receiving the gratuities in question were detrimental to other beneficiaries of the trust, the rules set out in Estate of Peabody (1935), 218 Wis. 541, 250 N. W. 444, and Estate of Teasdale (1952), 261 Wis. 248, 52 N. W. (2d) 366, can be applied. There is no showing, however, that the payment of said gratuities, which constituted tax advantages for Mrs. Landauer, actually had a detrimental effect on appellant’s interest in the estate. In the first place, the payments must be held to be proper; and the trial court pointed out in its decision that any decrease in earnings experienced by the Landauer companies in 1951 and 1952 were due to many conditions arising out of general market changes. Further, the evidence shows that the income of the trust in the years in which the gratuities were made would have been insufficient, even if they had not been made, to pay beneficiaries having claims under the will prior to any interest or right thereunder of the appellant. Neither in his main brief, nor in his brief in support of this motion, has appellant presented arguments based on evidence contrary to the trial court’s findings.
The motion for rehearing is denied with $25 costs.