McKee v. Jordan

• Decision Date: 25 November 1932
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 12.
• Citation: 144 So. 575,225 Ala. 598
• Parties: MCKEE ET AL. v. JORDAN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

144 So. 575

225 Ala. 598

MCKEE ET AL. v. JORDAN.

2 Div. 12.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 25, 1932

Appeal from Probate Court, Dallas County; Watkin M. Vaughan, Judge.

Petition of Lessie Glass Jordan to have exemptions in personal property set apart to her as a widow of Jefferson Davis Jordan, deceased, with exceptions by Mary Ethel McKee, Hattie Glass, Edna Glass, and Eva Compton. From a decree for petitioner, the excepters appeal.

Affirmed.

S. F Hobbs, of Selma, for appellants.

Wm. R Rountree, Jr., of Selma, for appellee.

THOMAS J.

The appeal presents a question of distribution of the proceeds of war risk insurance under the agreed statement of facts, the act of Congress, and statutes of force at the date of the death of assured. Title 38, U.S. Code, Annotated, § 514; First Nat. Bank of Chattanooga, Tenn. v. Forester, 223 Ala. 218, 135 So. 167, 168.

In the last cited decision the holding was that the father of insured as beneficiary had no such vested right therein as to prevent a change of beneficiary as to installments not accumulated or accrued "at his death," and that it was within the power of Congress to amend the act and provide for the distribution of the unaccumulated installments (Act of Congress, June 7, 1924, §§ 300, 303 503, as amended and § 602, 38 USCA §§ 511, 514, 554, and 571); and it was further decided that unaccrued or remaining installments due on a war risk policy upon the death of the first beneficiary, "vested in the estate of the insured" and should be "distributed to those who took under the laws of descent and distribution as of the date of the insured's death."

The facts are: Elva Marvin Jordan, a soldier at the time of his death, October 2, 1918, had war risk insurance, making his father, Jefferson Davis Jordan, the beneficiary, and under that policy the father received the sum of $57.50 monthly during his life; that "under section 303 of the World War Veterans' Act of Congress, title 38, U.S. Code, Annotated, § 514, the death of said Jefferson Davis Jordan, the sole beneficiary, terminated his rights as beneficiary, and the remaining unaccumulated installments under said insurance contract became payable in a lump sum to the administrator of the Estate of said Elva Marvin Jordan, and this sum of approximately $4,400.00 was so paid by the Veterans Administration of the United States of America to the Administrator of the Estate of said Elva Marvin Jordan"; that said beneficiary married Lessie Glass Jordan on the 1st day of May, 1919, which relation continued to the time of his death, when she was left as his widow with no children by that marriage, and the four daughters by his first marriage all being of age.

It is further agreed that at the time of the death of assured in 1918, his "heirs or...