In re McCausland's Estate

CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Citation213 Pa. 189,62 A. 780
PartiesIn re McCAUSLAND'S ESTATE. Appeal of STUART.
Decision Date02 January 1906
62 A. 780
213 Pa. 189

In re McCAUSLAND'S ESTATE.
Appeal of STUART.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Jan. 2, 1906.


Appeal from Orphans' Court, Westmoreland County.

In the matter of the estate of Anna McCausland. From a decree of distribution, Jane B. Stuart appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before MITCHELL, C. J., and FELL, BROWN. MESTREZAT, POTTER, ELKIN, and STEWART, JJ.

V. E. Williams, A. M. Sloan, and W. F. Wegley, for appellant. W. S. Byers and J. A. C. Ruffner, for appellee.

BROWN, J. This is an appeal from the decree of distribution in the estate of Anna McCausland, deceased. By the seventh clause of her will she devised to her daughter, Jane B. Stuart, the appellant, and to her son, Jacob W. McCausland, the rents, issues, and profits issuing from her real estate in Greensburg, and provided that "if either one survive the other then during the lifetime of the one surviving one half to him or her and the other half to the child or children of the one deceased." Jacob W. McCausland, the son, died on January 18, 1903, and one-half of the fund in the hands of the accountant is now claimed by the Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Greensburg, Pa., guardian of Jacob Welty McCausland, found by the court below to have been

62 A. 781

the legitimate son of Jacob W. McCausland, the son of the testatrix. The legitimacy of the ward of the appellee is the single question before us.

The court below, having found the boy to be the legitimate son and only child of Jacob W. McCausland, deceased, awarded his guardian one-half of the fund brought before it for distribution. We are not asked by any of the assignments to say that error was committed in receiving the testimony of witnesses, upon which the court's findings were based, but it is urged that from this testimony there ought to have been a finding that the ward of the appellee was not the legitimate child of the son of the testatrix, and therefore not entitled to a portion of her estate under the seventh clause of her will. Elizabeth McCausland, the mother of Jacob Welty McCausland, found by the court below to have been the lawful wife of Jacob W. McCausland, the son of testatrix, was the daughter of John and Sarah M. Evans, and prior to March 26, 1882, bad lived with her mother at Hannibal, Mo. On that day, when she was about 25 years of age, she was married to one John E. Rodgers, and lived with him until some time in the year 1884. The findings of the court below are that during this period Rodgers frequently...

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