In re Reimer's Estate

• Decision Date: 07 September 1927
• Docket Number: 20497.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: In re REIMER'S ESTATE.

259 P. 32

145 Wash. 172

In re REIMER'S ESTATE.

No. 20497.

Supreme Court of Washington

September 7, 1927

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Skagit County; Joiner, Judge.

Petition by John Reimer, administrator of the estate of Anna Reimer deceased, for an award of property to him as relict and sole heir. Upon the hearing Vera E. Bassett and Ralph Brosseau appeared and claimed an interest in the estate as decedent's adopted children. Judgment for administrator and claimants appeal. Affirmed.

Thomas K. Chambers, of Everett, and Fred C. Brown, of Seattle, for appellants.

Wilbra Coleman, of Mount Vernon, for respondent.

FULLERTON J.

On March 12, 1923, Anna Reimer died intestate in Skagit county in this state. Her surviving husband, John Reimer, petitioned for and was granted letters of administration upon her estate. In the inventory of the property of the estate, he listed as property subject to administration community personal property of the approximate value of $2,700. At the time of the death of the wife, the parties were possessed of other property of the approximate value of $25,000. This property the administrator claimed as his separate property and as not subject to administration. In due time the administrator filed his final account with the estate, and at the same time a petition for the distribution of the property thereof. In this latter petition, he claimed to be the sole heir of the estate and entitled to have the property awarded to him. At the time appointed for the hearing of the petitions Vera E. Bassett and Ralph Brosseau appeared and claimed an interest in the estate, alleging that they were the adopted children and the heirs at law of the decedent; further alleging that the entire property, that which the administrator claimed as separate property as well as that which he had listed as community property, was community property of the estate and was subject to distribution as property thereof, and prayed that they be awarded one-half of the property as such heirs. The administrator took issue upon the allegations of the claimants, and a trial of the issues was had, resulting in a denial of the claim of heirship and an award of the property to the administrator. The claimants appeal.

The trial court rested its conclusion on the ground that the claimants had failed to prove that they were the adopted children of the decedent. The evidence discloses that the now decedent Anna Reimer was a widow at the time of her marriage with John Reimer. Her former husband was one Frank Brosseau with whom she lived in the state of Michigan from some time prior to the year 1883, until they removed to the state of Washington in 1893. While living in the state of Michigan, at the city of Detroit therein, she took the claimants, then small children, from an orphanage asylum in that vicinity, and thereafter reared them as her own. Frank Brosseau died in this state in the year 1897. Something over a year thereafter the widow and John Reimer intermarried, the parties taking up their home at the residence theretofore established by John Reimer. Vera E. Bassett was married at the same time, and did...