Present: Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, and 

Agee, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 

CHRISTIE COLTRANE SEXTON OPINION BY 

SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 

v. Record No. 050643 January 13, 2006 

VIRGINIA CORNETT, ET AL. 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WYTHE COUNTY 

J. Colin Campbell, Judge 

 This appeal involves the interplay between two statutory 

schemes, the laws providing for a surviving spouse’s right to 

claim an elective share in a deceased spouse’s augmented 

estate, Code §§ 64.1-13 through 64.1-16.4, (the augmented 

estate laws) on one hand, and the laws exempting certain life 

insurance proceeds and vested retirement benefits from legal 

process, Code §§ 51.1-124.4, 51.1-510 and 38.2-3339 (the 

exemption laws) on the other. 

Facts and Proceedings 

 The parties submitted a stipulation of facts to the trial 

court. James Dean Sexton died intestate on August 31, 2003. 

He had been employed by the police department of the Town of 

Wytheville and by virtue of his employment was entitled to 

group life insurance administered by the Virginia Retirement 

System (VRS). He also had vested retirement benefits 

administered by VRS. At the time of his death, the value of 

his VRS life insurance was $68,392.88 and his VRS retirement 
2

benefits amounted to $27,394.60. His estate contained no 

other assets. 

 Sexton had no children. He was survived by his wife, 

Christie Coltrane Sexton (the widow). They had separated 

before his death and divorce proceedings were pending between 

them. Sexton had designated his wife as the beneficiary of 

his VRS life insurance and retirement benefits in 1994. He 

executed new VRS forms two months before his death, however, 

designating his sister, Virginia S. Cornett and her infant 

daughter, Lolly M. Cornett, (the beneficiaries) sole 

beneficiaries of his VRS life insurance and retirement 

benefits. 

 After Sexton’s death, his widow filed a petition for a 

determination of her elective share in his augmented estate, 

naming the beneficiaries as defendants. The petition claimed 

that the life insurance proceeds and retirement benefits 

should be included in the augmented estate of the decedent and 

that the widow should be allowed one-half thereof as her 

elective share. The trial court appointed a guardian ad litem 

to represent the interests of the infant defendant. 

 Upon the stipulated facts and exhibits, the trial court, 

in a letter opinion, ruled that the value of the life 

insurance proceeds and the value of the retirement benefits 

should be added to the augmented estate pursuant to Code 
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§ 64.1-16.1, but that nevertheless, that section “does not 

bring the actual benefits and life insurance proceeds into the 

estate.” Noting that the proceeds of group life insurance 

policies are exempted by Code § 38.2-3339 from application “by 

any legal or equitable process or operation of law” to any 

debt or liability of any person who has a right under the 

policy, the trial court held that the insurance proceeds and 

retirement benefits were not a part of the augmented estate 

and that the widow had no claim upon them. Because Sexton's 

estate had not been made a party to the suit, the trial court 

held that it had no jurisdiction to enter any orders except to 

rule upon the widow’s claim to the insurance and retirement 

benefits. We awarded the widow an appeal. 

Analysis 

 The General Assembly, in 1990, revised the former laws 

relating to wills and decedent’s estates to provide a new 

system of augmented estates in lieu of the former system of 

dower and curtesy rights, effective January 1, 1991. 1990 

Acts, ch. 831. The new system was designed to preclude one 

spouse from disinheriting the other by transferring his 

property to third parties during his lifetime and thus 

depleting his estate, Chappell v. Perkins, 266 Va. 413, 421, 

587 S.E.2d 584, 588 (2003), a feat easily accomplished at 

common law, Gentry v. Bailey, 47 Va. (6 Gratt.) 594 (1850). 
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 Under the new system, the value of any property having an 

aggregate value exceeding $10,000 transferred to or for the 

benefit of a donee by the decedent within the calendar year of 

his death, or within any of the five preceding calendar years, 

is to be included in the augmented estate. Code § 64.1-

16.1(A)(3)(d). Further, persons such as the beneficiaries who 

are "original transferees from or appointees of the decedent" 

are "subject to contribution to make up the elective share of 

the surviving spouse," § 64.1-16.2(c), although the surviving 

spouse's right can be waived. Dowling v. Rowan, 270 Va. 510, 

517-18, 621 S.E.2d 397, 400-01 (2005). 

 When the decedent is not survived by children or their 

descendants, the surviving spouse is entitled to one-half of 

the augmented estate. Code § 64.1-16. The designation of a 

person as beneficiary under a life insurance policy is a gift 

from the insured, even though the gift is revocable and its 

enjoyment is postponed. Walker v. Penick, 122 Va. 664, 672, 

95 S.E. 428, 431 (1918). The same reasoning applies to a 

designation of a person as beneficiary of vested retirement 

benefits. Thus, if the augmented estate laws are read in 

isolation, the assets held by these beneficiaries, as donees 

of the decedent’s property within the year prior to his death, 

are clearly subject to the widow’s claim. 
5

 On the other hand, the General Assembly has, for many 

years, maintained a legislative policy of exempting VRS life 

insurance proceeds and retirement benefits, in the hands of 

their designated beneficiaries, from attack of any kind. Code 

§ 51.1-510, pertaining to VRS life insurance, provides in 

pertinent part: “[T]he insurance provided for in this 

chapter, including any optional insurance, and all proceeds 

therefrom shall be exempt from levy, garnishment, and other 

legal process.” Code § 51.1-124.4, pertaining to VRS 

retirement benefits, provides in pertinent part: “Retirement 

allowances and other benefits accrued or accruing to any 

person under this title . . . shall not be subject to 

execution, attachment, garnishment, or any other process 

whatsoever . . . .” Code § 38.2-3339, pertaining to group 

life insurance generally, provides: 

§ 38.2-3339. Exemption of group life insurance 

policies from legal process. – No group life 

insurance policy, nor its proceeds, shall be liable 

to attachment, garnishment, or other process, or to 

be seized, taken, appropriated, or applied by any 

legal or equitable process or operation of law, to 

pay any debt or liability of any person insured 

under the policy, or his beneficiary, or any other 

person who has a right under the policy, either 

before or after payment. If the proceeds of a group 

life insurance policy are not made payable to a 

named beneficiary, the proceeds shall not constitute 

a part of the insured person's estate for the 

payment of his debts. 
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 The foregoing provisions have been a part of the law of 

Virginia since 1960, 1952, and 1934, respectively. 

Undoubtedly, much legal advice has been given and many estate 

plans have been made in reliance upon them. The question 

before us is whether they were partially repealed by 

implication when the augmented estate laws were enacted in 

1990. 

 The widow argues that the two statutory schemes are not 

necessarily in conflict because the augmented estate laws do 

not require that the beneficiaries pay into the estate for her 

benefit the particular assets covered by the exemption 

statutes. After the augmented estate has been increased by 

the “value” of the exempt assets, the widow contends, the 

beneficiaries may instead satisfy her claim by transferring to 

her other assets of equal value, subject to the court’s 

approval, citing Code § 64.1-16.2(E). We do not agree. Such 

a circular process would effectively nullify the exemption 

laws and would require a court to accomplish by indirection 

the very result those laws were designed to prevent. We do 

not attribute to the General Assembly the intention to create 

such an anomaly. The exemption statutes either apply or they 

do not. If they do not, it is because they were partially 

repealed by implication through the enactment of the augmented 

estate laws in 1990. 
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 The implied repeal of an earlier statute by a later 

enactment is not favored. There is a presumption against a 

legislative intent to repeal where the later statute does not 

amend the former or refer expressly to it. Albemarle County 

v. Marshall, 215 Va. 756, 761, 214 S.E.2d 146, 150 (1975). 

The courts assume that a legislative body, when enacting new 

legislation, was aware of existing laws pertaining to the same 

subject matter and intended to leave them undisturbed. 

Otherwise, the older laws would have been amended or expressly 

repealed. Consequently, when two statutes are in apparent 

conflict, it is the duty of the court, if reasonably possible, 

to give them such a construction as will give force and effect 

to each. Scott v. Lichford, 164 Va. 419, 422-23, 180 S.E. 

393, 394 (1935). 

 We adhere to a rule of construction that where there are 

two statutes, the earlier special and the later general, and 

the terms of the general are broad enough to include the 

subject matter provided for in the special, a presumption 

arises that the earlier special act is to be considered as 

remaining in effect as an exception to the later general law. 

Id. at 424, 180 S.E. at 395; see Crawford v. Haddock, 270 Va. 

524, 528, 621 S.E.2d 127, 129 (2005). The exemption laws are 

statutes of special application, in the sense that they apply 

only to specific and narrowly defined subject matter. The 
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augmented estate laws, by contrast, are broad and sweeping in 

their application to nearly all conceivable species of 

property rights. 

Conclusion 

 Applying the foregoing rules of statutory construction, 

we hold that the exemption laws remain in effect as exceptions 

to the application of the augmented estate laws. It follows 

that the rights of the beneficiaries to the proceeds of the 

decedent’s VRS life insurance and retirement benefits are 

unaffected by the augmented estate laws, that those exempt 

assets did not become a part of the augmented estate, that 

their value should not be added to it, and that the 

beneficiaries are not subject to any claims for contribution. 

Although we do not agree with the reasoning expressed by the 

trial court in reaching its decision, its holding was correct 

and we will affirm the judgment. 

Affirmed.