Wilson v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 13 November 1901
• Parties: WILSON et al. v. WILSON. [1]
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

64 S.W. 981

WILSON et al. v. WILSON. ^[1]

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

November 13, 1901

Appeal from circuit court, Harrison county.

"Not to be officially reported."

Action by Hannah Wilson against George W. Wilson and others for the allotment of dower, and for plaintiff's distributable interest in the estate of her deceased husband. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Blanton & Berry, for appellants.

A. H Ward and J. T. Simon, for appellee.

BURNAM J.

On the 20th day of December, 1888, Charles T. Wilson married the appellee, Hannah Wilson, pursuant to an agreement entered into in the preceding October. At the date of their engagement to marry, appellee was employed in one of the departments of the United States government in Washington City at a salary of $700 a year, and, so far as the record shows, was without property. Charles T. Wilson was a widower his family at that time consisting of three grown sons. He resided in a brick dwelling house, the title to which was in the children of his deceased wife, and he owned a brick storehouse in Cynthiana, worth about $4,200, and 90 shares of stock of the Farmers' National Bank of Cynthiana, the par value of which was $50 per share, and some $500 or $600 in money and cash notes. As an inducement for appellee to marry him, he represented to her, in a letter written to her in Washington on the 5th of October, 1888, that he had a comfortable home and a good income, and asked her to share it with him. She accepted his proposition, gave up her position and they were married on the 20th of December thereafter. After their marriage they lived happily together until his death, in December, 1896. Appellee and his three sons survived him. His will, executed in May, 1893, was probated, in which he appointed his son George S. Wilson his executor, and directed him to sell the brick storehouse and 60 of the 90 shares of bank stock, and out of the proceeds thereof to pay to his widow $1,500, in lieu of all dower or interest in his estate, and to pay to his sons an obligation for $3,000, which he had executed to them on the 7th day of August, 1889, for the express consideration of money received by him from the estate of their deceased mother.

It developed after his death that on the 15th day of December 1888, five days before his marriage to appellee, without her knowledge or consent, he had assigned in writing to his three sons 30 shares of his bank stock, under an agreement that he was to use the dividends so long as he lived, and the certificates for the stock were not to issue until after his death. It also appears that within less than 12 months after his marriage, without the knowledge or consent of appellee, he executed the note for $3,000, which was to be due and payable at his death. When these transactions were brought to the attention of appellee, she renounced the provision made for her in the will, and shortly thereafter instituted this suit, in which she alleges that the transfer of the bank stock and the execution of the $3,000 note were without consideration, and fraudulent and void as against her marital rights as widow in the estate of her deceased husband, and asked that they be so adjudged. She also sought to have her dower and distributable interest in the estate of her deceased husband allotted to her. Appellants answered that during the life of their mother, the first wife of Charles T. Wilson, he had received large sums of money belonging to her, and that in the execution to them of the note and the transfer of the...