Dobbins

This action, originally brought in the Superior Court of Kern County, California, and removed to the court below because of the diversity of citizenship of the parties, was instituted for the purpose of recovering for the plaintiff Barnes certain sums claimed to be due her from the defendant Dobbins. It was alleged that Dobbins, as trustee under a certain testamentary trust, had failed to pay to Barnes, one of the beneficiaries thereunder, her full share of the income of the trust estate for the year 1940.

The findings of the trial court disclose that the trust in question was created by the will of the plaintiff’s grandfather who died in 1893 in Pennsylvania where his will was admitted to probate. Dobbins subsequently became the trustee of the trust and his final accounting and schedule of distribution thereof was approved by the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on February 27, 1942, after contest by the plaintiff and other beneficiaries. Barnes’ entire distributive share of the trust estate, as disclosed by that accounting and schedule of distribution, was received by her on June 29, 1942.

Thereafter and on October 6, 1943, the Treasury Department of the…