Stewart v. Bank of Endicott

Citations

• 82 Wash. 106
• 143 P. 458
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 1477

Syllabus

<p>Husband and Wife — Community Prorerty — Presumptions—Descent — Actions to Recover. The presumption is that personal property held by a married man at the time of- his death was the community property of himself and surviving wife, under Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 5915 and 5916, defining the separate property of both hus.band and wife as that acquired by either before marriage, or by gift, bequest, devise, or descent, and Id., § 5917, declaring that all other property is community- property; and an action by the husband’s heirs to recover the same from the administrator, to state a cause of action, must show that it was his separate property.</p> <p>Samé — Community Property — Personalty — Descent — Trust Agreement to Circumvent Law of Descent — Equitable Estates— Trusts. A trust agreement by a married man disposing of all the personal community property, to be held in trust for him during his life, but held by the trustees at all times subject to his disposition and control, and acknowledging it to be his property, and extending the trust for the benefit of his wife during her life, without any power of disposition by her, together with his will bequeathing all of it to his own heirs to the exclusion of. those of his wife, is an attempt to circumvent Rem. & Bal. Code, § 5917, forbidding the husband from devising by will more than half of the community personal property, although he has the control and power of disposition of such property during life, and Id., § 1342, providing that on the death of either husband or wife, one-half of the community property shall descend to the survivor; since the trust terminated at his death, and hi's equitable interest at the time of his death, being governed by the rules of descent for legal estates, was subject to the law of descent and vested one-half in the surviving wife.</p>