In re Fields' Estate

• Citation: 141 Wash. 526,252 P. 534
• Decision Date: 06 January 1927
• Docket Number: 20077.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: In re FIELDS' ESTATE.

252 P. 534

141 Wash. 526

In re FIELDS' ESTATE.

No. 20077.

Supreme Court of Washington

January 6, 1927

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Asotin County; Kuykendall, Judge.

Final accounting of Hester A. Fields, administratrix of the estate of B. F. Fields, deceased. From the decree of distribution Polly Smith and others appeal. Affirmed.

See also, 243 P. 369.

R. M Sturdevant, of Dayton, for appellants.

Severin Iverson, of Spokane, for respondent.

HOLCOMB J.

This appeal is before us without any statement of facts or bill of exceptions.

From the probate records brought up in the transcript, it appears that B. F. Fields died in Asotin county on or about July 9, 1923, leaving surviving him his widow, Hester A. Fields, and also left real and personal property. He had previously been married; his former wife Mary Fields, having died and her estate having been probated as community property. Fields had married the surviving widow August 24, 1913. No issue, nor father nor mother, nor brothers nor sisters, survived him, but a number of nieces and nephews, children of deceased brothers and sisters, survived him; all his brothers and sisters having died prior to his death.

On April 26, 1920, Field had entered into a contract for the sale of certain of his separate real estate in Asotin county, consisting of 480 acres, and a contract of sale, with a deed and abstract of title were deposited in escrow in a bank in that county. From the petition for letters of administration, it appears that the contract ran to one J. H. Bethel, describing the real estate involved therein, referring to the escrow, and describing the property as real estate. In the final account signed February 4, 1924, and approved February 27, 1926, it was reported that the property contracted to be sold was in fact personal property, and that one lot in the town of Asotin was real estate. It was also stated that five payments had been made upon the contract of sale from Bethel to decedent. The contract itself is not before us, nor was it before the lower court at the time of its final decree. Neither is a purported assignment of the contract properly before us, after the decree of distribution, for no statement of facts is brought here, and it should have been made a part of a statement of facts and certified to be properly in the record before us.

From the final account it appears that there remained due and unpaid on the Bethel contract the sum of $8,000, at the date of the final account, February 4, 1924.

Appellants here are nieces and nephews of deceased, being children of brothers and sisters of deceased who died prior to his death.

On appeal they contend that the real estate involved in the Bethel contract should have been determined to be real estate belonging to the estate, and it and the other real estate, consisting of the lot in Asotin, should be distributed in equal shares to the widow and to them.

Appellants rely chiefly upon our decisions to the effect that the purchaser of real estate under an executory contract acquires no title to the real estate, and that no title passes until the vendee has so performed the conditions of the contract as to entitle him to a deed. Younkman v. Hillman, 53 Wash. 661, 102 P. 773; Tieton Hotel Co. v. Manheim, 75 Wash. 641, 135 P. 658; Smith v. Barber,

97 Wash. 18, 165 P. 873; In re Kuhn's Estate, 132 Wash. 678, 233 P. 293; Ashford v. Reese, 132 Wash. 649, 233 P. 29.

While it is true that no title passed to the vendee under the executory contract from Fields to Bethel, nevertheless, for the purpose of administration, it should be treated as personal property rather than real property. Hyde v. Hellar, 10 Wash. 586, 39 P. 249; Griggs Land Co. v. Smith, 46 Wash. 185, 89 P. 477; In re Denning's Estate, 112 Or. 621, 229 P. 912.

But, even considering all the estate in controversy as real estate, appellants have no rights as heirs under our statutes.

Succession of estates is entirely a matter of statutory regulation. Our statutes on this subject (section 1341, Rem. Comp. Stats.) reads as follows:

'2. If the decedent leaves no issue, the estate goes in equal shares to the surviving husband or wife and to the decedent's father and mother, if both survive. If there be no father nor mother, then one-half goes in equal shares to the brothers and sisters of the decedent, and to the children of any deceased brothers or sisters, by right of representation. If decedent leaves no issue, nor husband nor wife, the estate must go to his father and mother;

'3. If there be no issue, nor husband nor wife, nor father and mother, nor either, then in equal shares to the

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