Carballo v. McFann
| Decision Date | 11 December 1950 |
| Citation | 224 P.2d 902,101 Cal.App.2d 93 |
| Parties | CARBALLO v. McFANN et al. Civ. 17289. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Walter H. Young, Los Angeles, for appellants.
Pollock & Pollock, Edward I. Pollock and David Pollock, all of Los Angeles, for respondent.
Ernest A. Tolin, U. S. Atty., Clyde C. Downing, Robert Komins, Asst. U. S. Atty., all of Los Angeles, amici curiae for appellants.
From a judgment in favor of plaintiff after trial without a jury in an action to impose a constructive trust upon the proceeds of a National Service Life Insurance policy in the hands of the mother of decedent, defendants appeal.
Facts: Sergeant Paul W. McFann and plaintiff were married October 15, 1942. On January 26, 1944, Sergeant McFann applied for and obtained a policy of National Service Life Insurance in the sum of $10,000 naming his mother, defendant Gertrude McFann, as beneficiary thereof.
About September 10, 1944, Sergeant McFann was reported missing in action, and was declared officially dead by the war department as of September 10, 1944, and the government as of this date commenced paying defendant Gertrude McFann under the terms of the policy the sum of $46.80 per month. The premiums on the policy of approximately $6.70 per month had been deducted from his monthly salary as a sergeant pursuant to his directions.
The trial court decreed that plaintiff was entitled to one half of the proceeds of the policy on the theory that the premiums paid for the life insurance were community property, hence the proceeds were community property and plaintiff was entitled to one half thereof.
Questions: First: Did Congress in enacting the National Service Life Insurance Act in 1940 intend the act to exclusively occupy the field, and therefore intend it to be supreme, state laws to the contrary notwithstanding?
This question must be answered in the affirmative. The National Service Life Insurance Act provides that the insured 'shall have the right to designate the beneficiary or beneficiaries of the insurance [within a designated class], * * * and shall * * *, at all times have the right to change the beneficiary or beneficiaries * * *.' (38 U.S.C.A. § 802(g).)
The Supreme Court of the United States in Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U.S. 655, 70 S.Ct. 398, 94 L.Ed. 424, has held in a case squarely in point; though under state community property law the widow of a service man would be entitled to half of the proceeds of a nongovernmental life insurance policy, she has no such claim against those whom he has named beneficiaries under the National Service Life Insurance Act. Such an application of the state community property law would conflict with the express...
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Perryman's Estate, In re
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