Strader v. Metro. Life Ins. Co

• Decision Date: 16 September 1920
• Citation: 105 S.E. 74
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: STRADER. v. METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

105 S.E. 74

STRADER.

v.METROPOLITAN LIFE INS. CO.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Sept. 16, 1920.

Error to Circuit Court.Wise County.

Action by Lou L. Strader against the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.Affirmed in part and remanded.

W. B. Snidow, of Pearisburg, for plaintiff in error.

Jackson & Henson, of Roanoke, and Bernard Mason, of Pearisburg, for defendant in error.

SAUNDERS, J.The plaintiff in error In this court was the plaintiff in the trial court, and the defendant in error was the defendant.Hereinafter they will be respectively referred to as the plaintiff and the defendant.

The record in the case is a very brief one, and the question presented for review in this court is the ruling of the circuit court of the county of Giles upon the defendant's demurrer to the plaintiff's declaration.Before taking up the questions of law on the demurrer, a brief resume of the facts will be given.

In 1913, one Fred B. Tabor took out a policy of life insurance with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York, for the sum of $2,000.This sum was payable to his estate in the event he should die before the maturity of the policy.Later the policy was returned to the company, and by its indorsement on the back of the same it was provided that $1,000 of the total sum should be paid to Lou L. Strader, an aunt of the policy holder.In June, 1919, Tabor died, leaving a will in which he bequeathed to his aunt, the said Lou Strader, the remaining one-half of the policy.Thereupon the aunt, being entitled to collect one half of the policy by virtue of the company's assignment, and claiming the other half as legatee of his estate, made demand upon the insurance company for the full amount of $2,000.Payment being refused, the claimant brought an action of assumpsit against the company to enforce collection, filing the policy with her declaration.To this declaration the defendant demurred, assigning the following grounds of demurrer:

"First.The right of action to recover the one-half interest in the policy that was payable to the estate of Fred B. Tabor is in the personal representative of the said Tabor, and not in the plaintiff.

"Second.One half of the sum which may be recovered on the policy having been assigned by Fred Tabor in his lifetime to the plaintiff, the other one half remaining in the said Tabor, or his estate, an action at law cannot be maintained by the plaintiff to recover on this policy at all; the remedy of the plaintiff being in equity."

The circuit court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the plaintiff's action, "without prejudice to a suit in equity."To this judgment of the court a writ of error was allowed, and a supersedeas awarded by one of the judges of this court.

The plaintiff assigns as error the ruling of the court sustaining the demurrer.She cites the allegations of her declaration, admitted to be true by the demurrer, to the effect that the testator died free of debt, and insists that she was the sole beneficiary of the policy and the complete owner of the same.Hence her contention that she was entitled to bring an action at law.It is true that the plaintiff was the sole beneficiary of the policy by virtue of the indorsement of the company and the bequest of the testator, but it does not follow from that fact, or from the further fact, admitted by the demurrer, that Tabor died free of debt, that upon the allegations of her declaration she was the complete owner of the policy.The legal title to the one-half of the policy bequeathed by Tabor did not pass to the plaintiff in consequence of that bequest.

"Goods, chattels and sums of money to legatees, all pass to the executor, and he has them in the nature of a trustee.He alone has title in law to them, and nothing passes to the legatee; nor can any legatee take anything bequeathed to him without the executor's assent."

See cases cited in a note to the case of McClanahan's Adm'r v. Davis and others, 8 How. 168, 12 D. Ed. 1034.

This is the general doctrine relating to the personal estate of a decedent.Title to such estate passes to the personal representative, and, to maintain an action at law by another, that title must be derived from such representative.This may be done in several ways.

Under the head of Title to Chattels by Testament and Administration, Mr. Minor makes the following statement of the law:

"At a decedent's death, the whole of his personal property, with trivial exceptions, goes either to his executor, or personal representative.The heir, or devisee, succeeds to his realty, wherein at his death the decedent had an estate of freehold, or of inheritance, whilst all other property vests in the personal representative."3 Min. Inst.p. 526.

It is true that the personal representative takes on the three trusts indicated by Mr. Minor, but nevertheless he takes, and the title to and lawful possession of the personal property of the decedent must be derived from him.Whatever may be the allegations made with respect to the indebtedness of a decedent, or however true they may be, a debtor of his estate has the right to demand that the person seeking to collect from him shall either be the personal representative of the decedent, or else has duly derived his...