Carter v. King

On this appeal, we construe the statutes of descent to determine whether the appellant, the surviving spouse of the intestate, is an heir at law of the decedent.

The money at stake is the remainder of a portion of the corpus of a testamentary trust created in 1920. Following a decision by this Court in Jewett v. Harvie, 183 Va. 734, 33 S.E.2d 213 (1945), the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, Division I, entered a final decree holding that Mary Jones Carter had a life estate in the funds at issue “with remainder to her heirs at law, to be determined as of the date of her death.”

Mary Jones…