Guerard v. Guerard

• Decision Date: 30 September 1884
• Citation: 73 Ga. 506
• Parties: Guerard et al. vs. Guerard et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

73 Ga. 506

Guerard et al. vs. Guerard et al.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

SEPTEMBER TERM, 1884.

Wills. Estates. Evidence. Heirs. Words and Phrases. Before Judge Adams. Chatham Superior Court, June Term, 1884.

Guerard et al. filed their bill against Guerard et al. for partition, and to obtain a construction of the will of Dr. Augustus Guerard, deceased, under which both sides claimed, the subject-matter of the conflicting claims beinga half interest in a lot of land in Savannah, Georgia. The facts are sufficiently stated in the decision.

Under the charge of the court, the jury found for complainants. Defendants moved for a new trial, on the following among other grounds:

(1.) Because the court admitted parol evidence, over objections of defendants, to show the following facts: That the testator was a citizen and resident of the state of Pennsylvania when he made his will; that he derived his title to the property in dispute from his mother, from whom the complainants, but not the defendants, are descended; that by the law of Pennsylvania, the real property in that state of an intestate dying without widow, father, mother or issue living at his death, and having brothers and sisters both of the whole and half blood, or representatives of such brothers and sisters, descended to and vested in the brothers and sisters of the whole blood, or their representatives, to the exclusion of those of the half blood.

(2.) Because the court charged to the effect that the words, " own right heirs, " should be given the meaning which they had in Pennsylvania, and that kin of the whole blood would take under them in preference to kin of the half blood.

The motion was overruled, and defendants excepted.

John M. Guerard; Wm, S. Basinger, for plaintiffs in error.

Denmark & Adams, for defendants.

Blandford, Justice.

Augustus Guerard owned a certain tract of land in Savannah; he made his will in 1845, by which he left all his property, real and personal, to his wife for her life, with remainder to the issue of the marriage living at her death, and in default of such issue to his " own right heirs." Thewidow took the estate during her life, and died November 1, 1883, without issue of the marriage living at her death. The father of the testator was married twice; by the first marriage he had two sons, the testator and Robert Godin Guerard, whose descendants are the complainants in the bill (the defendants in error); by the second marriage, he had the plaintiffs in error (the defendants in the court below), who are brothers and sister of the half blood of the testator by the paternal side. The court allowed complainants to prove that testator lived in the state of Pennsylvania when he died and when the will was made, and that the property in Savannah was derived from his mother! also what the law of Pennsylvania was as to who were the heirs of a person dying in that state when the testator died; also that testator, when he made this will, had real and personal property in the state of Pennsylvania. —This testimony was objected to by the plaintiffs in error, and the objection overruled by the court, and they excepted, and this is the first ground of error complained of.

The law of Pennsylvania having been shown to be, when this will was made, that the brothers and sisters of the whole blood should inherit in preference to the brothers and sisters of the half blood, the court below held that the testator meant by the use of the words, " my own right heirs, " his brother of the whole blood, and that complainants in the bill, being the defendants in error and the descendants of Robert Godin Guard, er the only brother, there being no sisters, were entitled under the will to the property mentioned in the bill, to the exclusion of brothers and sisters of the half blood.—This ruling is also excepted to, and forms the only other ground of complaint. This will will be construed according to the laws of Georgia. The cardinal rule of construction of...