Bitney v. Odegard (In re Peters' Estate)
| Decision Date | 12 January 1937 |
| Citation | 223 Wis. 411,270 N.W. 921 |
| Parties | In re PETERS' ESTATE. BITNEY et al. v. ODEGARD et al. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from that part of a judgment of the County Court for Dane County, construing the will of William F. Peters; George Kroncke, Judge.
Affirmed.
This proceeding was begun on April 27, 1936, by the filing of the petition of Delbert Odegard and Otto Rogge, praying that the court construe the second and fifth paragraphs of the will of William F. Peters. The matter was brought on for a hearing, and the construction contended for by the executors was opposed by Mrs. Amelia Bitney, Mrs. Lena Patterson, Mrs. Wilhelmina Doerschlag, and Frank Rohlke, children of the deceased wife of the testator, and Bernice Fletcher and Leslie Bitney, children of Emma Bitney, deceased child of Minnie Peters, the deceased wife. From the judgment entered July 6, 1936, the heirs of Minnie Peters appeal.
Minnie Peters, the wife of William Peters, died March 23, 1932. She had been twice married. The defendants in this case are her children and grandchildren of the first marriage. William Peters was an employee of John Rohlke, the first husband of Minnie Peters. Rohlke died in 1894, and about one year thereafter William Peters married Minnie, the widow of John Rohlke. She had no children by the second husband.
The will of William Peters, which was admitted to probate, provided by its second paragraph as follows: “I give, devise and bequeath to my said wife, Minnie Peters, and to her heirs and assigns forever, one-third of my estate remaining after the payment of the items mentioned in the first paragraph hereof, but if said one-third of my estate shall not be as much as $5,000.00, then my wife shall receive the sum of $5000.00 in lieu of said one-third of my estate.”
The fifth paragraph provided: “I direct that my executors, or the survivor of them, for the purpose of converting my real estate into money, shall sell and dispose of the same at such times and for such price as they may think best for the conserving of my estate and I hereby empower them to execute any and all necessary and proper deeds of conveyance of the same to the purchasers, but they may have three years within which to dispose of my real estate.”
The trial court held that by the second paragraph the testator intended to give to his wife an absolute title; that the words “and to her heirs and assigns forever” are words of limitation and not of substitution; that the provisions of the second paragraph of the will lapsed by reason of the fact that Minnie Peters predeceased the decedent.
The trial court further...
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Mangel's Estate, In re
... ... In Will of Peters (1937), 223 Wis. 411, 270 N.W. 921, the testator bequeathed a part of his estate to his wife and to ... ...
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Zink's Estate, In re
...this testator intended equal shares for his four daughters would do violence to the language of the will. In Will of Peters (1937), 223 Wis. 411, 413, 270 N.W. 921, 922, this court 'While it is true that a will must be construed in accordance with the evident intention of the testator when ......
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Hoermann v. Hoermann (In re Hoermann's Estate)
... ... Will of Johnson, 199 Wis. 154, 225 N.W. 818, 70 A.L.R. 575; Will of Peters, 223 Wis. 411, 270 N.W. 921. In the Johnson case [199 Wis. 154, 225 N.W. 820, 70 A.L.R. 575] it was ... ...
- State v. Bean