Estate of Lamb

Dillon & Cavanaugh and Francis B. Dillon for Claimants and Appellants.

Morrison, Foerster, Holloway, Clinton & Clark, Richard Archer, Stanley A. Doten, John L. Boudett, Evelle J. Younger, Attorney General, Carl Boronkay and Joanne Condas, Deputy Attorneys General, for Claimants and Respondents.

OPINION

DEVINE, P.J.

On this appeal from a "Decision and Judgment Determining Interest in Estate" which was made pursuant to the executrix' petition to determine heirship, we are presented with the question whether a devise and bequest to The San Francisco Foundation of Otology (hereinafter The Foundation), a charitable corporation which was not in existence at the time of the execution of the will or at the time of the death of the testatrix, may be sustained.

The Will: Ruby-Ethel Lamb executed the witnessed will on March 7, 1967. She died on December 24, 1968, and the will was admitted to probate on February 6, 1969. In the will she declared that she had never been married and that she had no adopted children; that her nearest relatives were Alice Grace Lamb, a sister who made her home with the testatrix; Frances Lamb Atthowe, a sister; Mabel Lamb Paulsen, a sister; George Thomas…