Kauffman

A judgment in favor of plaintiffs against defendant as administrator of the estate of Jacob K. Cries, decreeing that said administrator should invest $1,000 in his hands and transfer the security to San Buena Ventura Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, under a contract that of the income of such $1,000 so much as necessary should be used in the maintenance of a burial lot in which is interred the remains of Mrs. Mary S. Cries. From an order denying a new trial defendant appeals, upon a bill of exceptions.

The case is this: Ventura Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, is an unincorporated association, found by the court to have been organized for charitable purposes, and since its organization has been collecting and disbursing large sums by way of charity, and no money received by it can be properly expended otherwise than for expenses of the association and for charitable purposes. This association contains about eighty-five members. Mrs. Cries, by her last will, devised to her husband, Jacob K. Cries, certain real estate and requested him that, out of the rents, issues and profits thereof, to invest $1,000 in some satisfactory security and transfer the same to the association above…

I concur in the judgment of affirmance. The appeal before us is from an order denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial, and the questions to be considered are those only relating to appeals of this kind, which, in the present .case, are confined to the alleged insufficiency of the evidence, and the point that the decision is against law.

The findings attacked for insufficiency of the evidence to support them are, in effect: (1) That the Ventura lodge is a charitable institution and its funds devoted exclusively to charity; (2) that the lodge is competent under the laws of the state of California to receive bequests of real and personal property; (3) that a thousand dollars was “segregated” by Gries for the purpose of complying with the provisions of the will out of the rents and profits of the lands devised to him, and that this sum has come into the hands of his administrator; and (4) that the claim of the lodge was presented to the administrator of the estate of Gries in the manner required by the provisions of section 1502 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Of these findings, the first is clearly not supported by the evidence; for it appears, without contradiction, that…