Woodworth v. Tepper

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The United States Veterans’ Bureau paid to the appellees, as administrators of the estate of George Mitchell Jacobs,deceased, the sum of $3,949.45, as the unpaid portion of the life insurance provided in a policy issued to the decedent as a veteran of the World War. After his death, on July 10th, 1920, monthly instalments of the insurance were paid, under the terms of the policy, to his mother, as the designated beneficiary, until her death on August 31st, 1924. The World War Veterans Act provides, in section 303, that if the designated beneficiary “survives the insured and dies prior to receiving all of the two hundred and forty instalments or all such as are payable and applicable, there shall be paid to the estate of the insured the present value of the monthly instalments thereafter payable, said value to be computed as of date of last payment made under any existing award; * * The payment to the administrators representing the estate of the insured was made in accordance with that provision, and the fund so paid constitutes his entire estate.

As he died without a will, the fund must be distributed in pursuance of the intestacy laws of Maryland, where he resided. Among the provisions of our Code directing such distributions is the following: “If there be either father or mother living, the other parent having died, and no child or descendants, the father or mother, as the case may be, shall have the whole.” Article 93, section 132. ³³⁴ George Mitchell Jacobs, the insured, was predeceased by his father, but was survived by his mother, and by two sisters, a brother, and a niece who was the daughter of a deceased sister. His mother died in California, as the widow of a second husband, leaving .a will by which she devised and bequeathed her residuary estate to her two daughters by her first marriage, who were also residents of that state. The brother and niece resided in Maryland.

One of the daughters, as executrix of her mother’s will, filed a petition in the Orphans’ Court of Prince George’s County, Maryland, where the estate of her deceased brother, George Mitchell Jacobs, is in course of administration, claiming that, as the personal representative of their mother, she is entitled to receive the whole of the fund composing his estate. This claim is opposed by the brother and niece, who assert that they are entitled to share in the fund as next of kin of George Mitchell Jacobs, living at the time of distribution. The