In re Estate of Monaghan
Decision Date | 17 May 1943 |
Docket Number | Civil 4515 |
Citation | 60 Ariz. 342,137 P.2d 393 |
Parties | In the Matter of the Estate of Robert J. Monaghan, Deceased, v. RICHARD H. KENNERDELL, Appellee ELIZABETH G. MONAGHAN, Appellant, |
Court | Arizona Supreme Court |
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the County of Maricopa. M. T. Phelps, Judge. Judgment reversed.
Mr. H S. McCluskey, for Appellant.
Messrs Cornick & Carr, Mr. Wallace W. Clark, and Mr. O. M. Trask for Appellee.
Three appeals have come to this Court from a will contest case (post, p. 346), 137 P.2d 390) tried in the Superior Court of Maricopa County. This appeal is taken from a part of and order and judgment rendered by the court on a petition of the executor appointed in the will asking for a determination of character of property, and that part of the judgment reads as follows:
Therefore, the real issue in this case is whether or not future fees that may be paid to the appellant because of the Intermountain Building and Loan Association litigation should be accounted for as community property within the meaning of Section 63-301, Arizona Code Annotated 1939, which reads as follows:
The appellant claims that the fee involved is a possibility only, and dependent on the happening of a contingency; that no property has yet been acquired. She also claims that the services were rendered while she lived separate and apart from the testator, who was her husband.
The will of deceased, which was dated April 18, 1940, reads, in part, as follows:
It is the contention of the appellee herein that the attorney's fees in question were earned prior to November, 1935, when the deceased and appellant were living together, and the fee was therefore community property, notwithstanding that the judgment on the merits of the controversy in the Intermountain Building and Loan Association action was entered January 5, 1937.
The condition precedent in the matter of the fee of this appellant, the attorney wife of the testator of the will, was that the Intermountain Building and Loan Association be declared insolvent, a fund created of its assets, and a permanent receiver appointed to administer the same, and the fund distributed to the creditors. In that respect the facts apparently further show that the trial of that cause on the merits occurred September 29, 1936; the court took the matter under advisement and the judgment and decree of the Federal Court determining the corporation to be insolvent and appointing a permanent receiver was rendered on the 5th day of January, 1937. This was at a time after the abandonment by deceased of his wife, this appellant.
"... The character of the property, as to being separate or community, becomes fixed at the time it is acquired...." Pendleton v. Brown, 25 Ariz. 604, 221 P. 213, 215.
As stated in the will there was a property settlement...
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Due v. Due
...which have considered the matter. See, e.g.: Comm. of Internal Revenue v. King, 69 F.2d 639 (5th Cir. 1934); In re Monaghan's Estate, 60 Ariz. 342, 137 P.2d 393 (1943); Waters v. Waters, 75 Cal.App.2d 265, 170 P.2d 494 (Cal.App.4th Dist. 1946), noted 20 So.Cal.L.Rev. 281. But see Land v. Ac......
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Garrett v. Garrett
...husband argues that as to the contingent fee contracts, based upon the nature of these contracts and the case of In re Estate of Monaghan, 60 Ariz. 342, 137 P.2d 393 (1943), the fees flowing from such contracts are his separate property as they will be received after dissolution and therefo......