Case Name: Matter of the Estate of Fannie Block, Deceased
Court: New York Surrogate's Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1919-04
Citations: 107 Misc. 124
Docket Number: 
Parties: Matter of the Estate of Fannie Block, Deceased.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 107
Pages: 124–125

Head Matter:
Matter of the Estate of Fannie Block, Deceased.
(Surrogate’s Court, New York County,
April, 1919.)
Wills — execution of — codicils — witnesses.
Where the residuary clause of a will comes after the signature of the testatrix and is followed by the attestation clause signed by the witnesses, and that portion which precedes the signature of the testatrix is incorporated into a codicil duly executed, both may be admitted to probate.
Proceeding upon the probate of a will and codicil.
Charles A. Strauss, for petitioner.

Opinion:
Fowler, S.
An instrument purporting to be a will and an instrument purporting to be a codicil thereto are presented for probate. The first sixteen paragraphs of the will contain several legacies, but do not dispose of the residue of the estate. The seventeenth paragraph contains the appointment of executors and is followed by the testimonium clause, which states that the instrument was executed on June 8, 1913. Then follows the signature of the testatrix. The signature is followed by a paragraph numbered eighteenth, which disposes of the residue of the estate, and after that is the attestation clause which was signed by the witnesses on November 3,1914, when the testatrix published the instrument and requested the witnesses to sign it. The codicil, while not referring to the will by date, recites a bequest in the will, revokes it and bequeaths to the daughter of the legatee the share of the estate which had been bequeathed to her father by the will. The testatrix declared the instrument to be á codicil to her will and expressly directed that the codicil should be a part of it. The codicil was duly executed.
While the earlier instrument could not, when taken alone, be admitted to probate because it was not signed by the testatrix ánd the witnesses at the end thereof, inasmuch as it is an attested instrument, that portion of it which precedes the signature of the testatrix was incorporated into the codicil, and both should be admitted to probate. Present a decree setting forth therein in haec verba the will admitted to probate.
Probate decreed.