Gauch v. St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance

Citations

• 88 Ill. 251

Syllabus

<p>1. Contract—who meant by “ legal heirs ” in policy of insurance. A policy of life insurance, payable to the “ legal heirs ” of the person whose life is insured, when he leaves children at his death, is payable to them. His widow, in such case, is not included in the words as an heir.</p> <p>2. The words “ legal heirs ” of a person, in a devise or policy of insurance, will be held to mean those to whom the law would give his property, real and personal, if he should die intestate.</p> <p>3. It is the actual capacity of inheritance at the time of the death of the owner of property, and not the fact that a particular person might have inherited from him under a state of fact which did not exist, that determines who is heir.</p> <p>4. Descents—dower—heirship, as between husband and wife, construed. The provision in the chapter of Revised Statutes of 1874 entitled “ Descent,” that “ when there is a widow or a surviving husband, and also a child, etc., of the intestate, the widow or surviving husband shall receive, as his or her absolute personal estate, one-third of all the personal estate of the intestate,” was not intended to make the widow or husband an heir of the intestate, but to define what shall be taken as dower.</p> <p>5. Section 10 of ch. 41, Rev. Stat. of 1874, entitled “ Dower,” which makes a devise of lands or an interest therein bar dower, unless the will is renounced, has no reference to the rights of the husband or wife as heir to each other, but solely to their rights as widow or surviving husband.</p> <p>6. One entitled to dower, or an interest in the nature of dower, or any allowance of personal property, because of survivorship as husband or wife, is not included within the legal definition of the word “ heir.”</p> <p>7. Where a person holding a policy of insurance on his life, payable to his “legal heirs or assigns,” by will bequeathed the same to his children, while it was conceded that the bequest, did not operate as a valid assignment to the c