15 Guam Code Ann. § 1321
Terms Used In 15 Guam Code Ann. § 1321
- Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
- Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Probate: Proving a will
- Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
Survivorship, Generally.
Where the title to property or the devolution thereof depends upon priority of death and there is no sufficient evidence that the persons have died otherwise than simultaneously, the property of each person shall be disposed of as if such person had survived, except as otherwise provided in this Chapter.
SOURCE: California Probate Code, § 296.
COMMENT: Chapter 13 of this Title consists of the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act (U.S.D.A.), which comprised §§ 296 – 296.8 of the Probate Code of Guam (1970). The U.S.D.A., or some version thereof, has been adopted in virtually every jurisdiction of the United States, as well as in the Virgin Islands, the Panama Canal
Zone, and Guam. Its purpose is to A…supplant the former arbitrary and complicated
presumption of survivorship with effective, workable and equitable rules applicable to the ever- increasing number of cases where two or more persons have died under such circumstances that there is no sufficient evidence to indicate that they have
died otherwise than simultaneously,@ In re Schmidt’s Estate (1968), 67 Cal. Rptr.
847, 261 C.A.2d 262. In keeping with the general structure of this Title, the
Commission has decided to use the California version of the U.S.D.A.; this was
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15 Guam Code Ann. ESTATES AND PROBATE
CH. 13 SIMULTANEOUS DEATH
also apparently done in the Probate Code of Guam (1970), and only minor changes from prior law have been made in Chapter 13. These changes have been made for three reasons: to make certain Sections easier to read; to make the provisions of the U.S.D.A. read sex-neutrally to the greatest extent practicable (under the general mandate of Public Law 14-28); and to bring Guam’s version of the Act into conformity with certain other revisions of this Title, notably in the area of community property — i.e., §§ 1309 and 1311, infra.
§ 1303. Beneficiaries Taking Successively Under Another’s
Disposition of Property In Simultaneous Death Situation.
Where two or more beneficiaries are designated to take successively by reason of survivorship under another person’s disposition of property, and there is no sufficient evidence that these beneficiaries have died otherwise than simultaneously, the property thus disposed of shall be divided into as many equal portions as there are successive beneficiaries and these portions shall be distributed respectively to those who would have taken in the event that each designated beneficiary had survived.
SOURCE: California Probate Code, § 296.1.
COMMENT: Section 1303 is identical with the provisions of § 2 of the Uniform
Simultaneous Death Act; see 9A Uniform Laws Annotated.