## Facts

- Thomas White died intestate owning real property.
- White left no surviving spouse, descendants, parents, or siblings (or their descendants).
- White’s surviving kindred were Annie Estes (paternal half-aunt), Josie Winter (maternal aunt of the whole blood), and Charlotte H. Nicholson (maternal grandmother).
- Florida statutes provided that, in the absence of closer heirs, the inheritance must be divided into two moieties—one passing to paternal kindred and one to maternal kindred—and that collateral kindred of the half blood take half as much as collateral kindred of the whole blood.
- In a partition proceeding, the circuit court treated Estes’s half-blood status as reducing her share before the moiety division and awarded Estes 1/5, Winter 2/5, and Nicholson 2/5 of the whole estate.
- Estes appealed, arguing she was entitled to the full paternal moiety (one-half of the estate) as the only paternal representative.

## Issues

1. Whether the intestate estate must first be divided into paternal and maternal moieties, with each moiety descending separately to that side’s kindred.
2. Whether the half-blood reduction for collateral kindred may be applied to the entire estate before the moiety division, thereby increasing the opposite side’s whole-blood shares.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Florida modified the decree.
- The court held the statute requiring division into paternal and maternal moieties is mandatory and creates two separate halves for succession purposes.
- The court held the half-blood reduction does not override the moiety division and applies only within a moiety where both half-blood and whole-blood collaterals are competing on the same side.
- Because Estes was the only paternal kindred, she took the entire paternal moiety (one-half of the estate); the maternal kindred took the other half under the maternal line’s rules.

## Legal Principles

- When an intestate decedent leaves no spouse, descendants, parents, or siblings (or their descendants), the estate must be divided into two equal moieties: one for paternal kindred and one for maternal kindred.
- After the moiety division, each moiety descends independently and exclusively to kindred on that side so long as any such kindred exist.
- A statute reducing a half-blood collateral’s share does not permit recombining the two moieties or shifting value from one side to the other.
- The half-blood reduction operates only within the relevant moiety and only affects distribution among takers on the same parental side.

## Conclusion

The court required a mandatory, initial division of the intestate estate into paternal and maternal halves and held that the half-blood reduction cannot be used to diminish a sole paternal half-blood heir’s entitlement to the paternal moiety in favor of maternal whole-blood relatives.


Estes v. Nicholson, 23 So. 490 (Fla. 1898)