## Facts

- Roy A. Villwock and his wife, June Rose Villwock, suffered fatal injuries in a head-on automobile collision and were transported together by ambulance to a hospital.
- Roy’s will devised his entire estate to June without any requirement that she survive him for a stated period; June’s will devised her estate to specified members of her family.
- Emergency medical technicians reported that Roy experienced cardiopulmonary failure minutes before June experienced similar failure.
- Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was begun in the ambulance and continued at the hospital after arrival.
- Physicians later pronounced June dead at 8:23 p.m. and Roy dead at 8:34 p.m.
- At a probate hearing, the physician who treated Roy testified that Roy’s cardiopulmonary failure in the ambulance was irreversible despite resuscitation efforts.
- The probate court found that Roy actually died in the ambulance while June was still alive, causing Roy’s estate to pass to June under his will and then to June’s beneficiaries under her will.
- Roy’s daughter from a prior marriage, Mary A. Hintz, appealed, arguing the evidence did not sufficiently establish an order of death and that Wisconsin’s simultaneous-death statute should control.

## Issues

1. Whether the probate court’s finding that Roy died before June was clearly erroneous under Wis. Stat. § 805.17(2).
2. Whether the evidence was insufficient to show the decedents died otherwise than simultaneously, requiring application of Wis. Stat. § 851.55(1) (Uniform Simultaneous Death Act).
3. Whether expert testimony that Roy suffered irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions established death under Wis. Stat. § 146.71 (Uniform Determination of Death Act), despite later hospital pronouncement times.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the probate order.
- The determination of Roy’s time of death was a factual finding reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard and was supported by credible evidence.
- The credited medical testimony supported a finding that Roy’s cardiopulmonary failure in the ambulance was irreversible, establishing that Roy died before June under § 146.71.
- Because the probate court found a proven sequence of deaths, the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act, § 851.55(1), was inapplicable.

## Legal Principles

- The time and order of death in probate is a question of fact; appellate review is limited to whether the finding is clearly erroneous. Wis. Stat. § 805.17(2).
- A person is dead when there is irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions; expert medical testimony may establish irreversibility and thus the legal time of death. Wis. Stat. § 146.71.
- Wisconsin’s Uniform Simultaneous Death Act applies only when there is not sufficient evidence that the decedents died otherwise than simultaneously; conflicting records or differing pronouncement times do not, by themselves, require the statute’s application. Wis. Stat. § 851.55(1).
- When a will leaves property to a spouse without a survival condition, a finding that the spouse survived—even briefly—causes the estate to pass to that spouse and then to the spouse’s beneficiaries.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the probate court’s finding that Roy died in the ambulance before June based on credited medical testimony of irreversible cardiopulmonary failure, and it held that the simultaneous-death statute did not govern because the evidence established a sequence of deaths, leading Roy’s estate to pass through June’s estate to her named beneficiaries.


In re Estate of Villwock, 142 Wis. 2d 144, 418 N.W.2d 1 (Wis. Ct. App. 1987)