Opinion ID: 1187773
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Effective Date Of Probate Code

Text: The result of the court's decision is to determine that the new Wyoming probate code applies to wills previously written in order to afford the significant modernization factor of the new law to those pre-1980 wills. The applicable provisions include § 2-1-102, W.S. 1977: Rules of construction and applicability. (a) This code shall be liberally construed and applied, to promote the following purposes and policies to: (i) Simplify and clarify the law concerning the affairs of decedents, missing persons, protected persons, minors and incapacitated persons; (ii) Discover and make effective the intent of a decedent in distribution of his property;       (b) Unless displaced by the particular provisions of this code, the principles of law and equity supplement the code provisions. (c) This code is a general act intended as a unified coverage of its subject matter and no part of it shall be deemed impliedly repealed by subsequent legislation if it can reasonably be avoided. (d) The procedure herein prescribed shall govern all proceedings in probate brought after the effective date of this code. It shall also govern further procedure in proceedings in probate then pending unless the court determines its application in particular proceedings or parts thereof is not feasible or will work an injustice, in which event the former procedure shall apply. [4] Section 2-6-105, W.S. 1977: The intention of a testator as expressed in his will controls the legal effect of his dispositions. The rules of construction expressed in the succeeding sections of this article apply unless a contrary intention is indicated by the will. This intention section is followed by the specific rules of construction, which provisions include § 2-6-106, antilapse, deceased devisees, class gifts; § 2-6-107, failure of a testamentary provision; § 2-6-108, specific devise of securities, accessions, nonademption; § 2-6-109, nonademption of specific devises where sold, etc., by conservator, exception, rights of specific devisee; § 2-6-110, exercise of power of appointment; and § 2-6-111, nonexoneration. For the court to hold otherwise would require the declaration that a potential beneficiary of some testamentary disposition has a property right in an existent will after execution, and also in the construction and interpretation afforded by case law or legislation existent at the time of execution without later possible amendment by case decision or statutory change. See Redd v. Hargroves, 40 Ga. 18 (1869). We do not accept that conclusion. It is axiomatic that wills are ambulatory until testator death fixes inheritance rights. Park County ex rel. Park County Welfare Department v. Blackburn, Wyo., 394 P.2d 793 (1964).    The right to make a testamentary disposition of property is neither a natural nor a constitutional right. Such right is derived from and rests in positive law. A will is said to be ambulatory until the death of the testator, and until that event occurs the testamentary disposition is subject to the will of the testator, and likewise to the will of the state as expressed in its public laws. The will speaks as of the date of the testator's death, and must conform to the laws in force at that time. These rules are elementary, and need no citation of authority in their support. While the Legislature may not interfere with or divest estates which have already become vested through the death of the testator, its power over wills, the manner of their execution, and the mode of carrying out their provisions is absolute and supreme until death occurs. Strand v. Stewart, 51 Wash. 685, 99 P. 1027, 1028-1029 (1909). Not until the ancestor dies is there any vested right in the heir; no one is the heir of a living person, nemo est haeres viventis. See In re Davidson's Estate, 96 Cal. App.2d 263, 215 P.2d 504 (1950); Riggs National Bank of Washington, D.C. v. Zimmer, Del. Ch., 304 A.2d 69, aff'd 314 A.2d 178 (1973); Haskell v. Wilmington Trust Co., Del.Super., 304 A.2d 53 (1973); Friedman v. Cohen, 215 Ga. 859, 114 S.E.2d 24 (1960); Matter of Buffi's Estate, 98 Ida. 354, 564 P.2d 150 (1977); Estate of Weeks, Me., 462 A.2d 44 (1983); Evans v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co. of Baltimore, 190 Md. 332, 58 A.2d 649 (1948); Equitable Trust v. Smith, 26 Md. App. 264, 337 A.2d 205 (1975); In re Bresler, 155 Mich. 567, 119 N.W. 1104 (1909); Wilson v. Greer, 50 Okla. 387, 151 P. 629 (1915); Wakefield v. Phelps, 37 N.H. 295 (1858); In re Holibaugh's Will, 18 N.J. 229, 113 A.2d 654, 52 A.L.R.2d 1222 (1955); Varick v. Smith, 69 N.J. Eq. 505, 61 A. 151 (1905); Montclair Trust Co. v. Spadone, 139 N.J.E. 7, 49 A.2d 497 (1946); In re Davis, 134 N.J.E. 393, 35 A.2d 880 (1944); In re Linn's Estate, 435 Pa. 598, 258 A.2d 645 (1969); In re Tripp's Estate, 402 Pa. 211, 166 A.2d 619 (1961); In re Collin's Estate, 393 Pa. 195, 142 A.2d 178 (1958); Hannah v. Hannah, 70 R.I. 175, 37 A.2d 783 (1944); Dwight v. Dwight, 64 R.I. 294, 12 A.2d 227, 129 A.L.R. 855 (1940). See also Annot., 129 A.L.R. 859, Law in effect at time of execution of will or at time of death of testator as controlling.    [I]t may be noted that in some cases the courts, while holding that the statute in force at the date of death of the testator controlled, have stated that, the will being ambulatory and so not becoming effective until the death of the testator, such statute was not retrospective, since it affected no rights vested before its passage. 129 A.L.R. at 861. The misapprehension as to the law as contended by the dissenting opinion is reflected by footnote exclusion of the Wyoming cases of Matter of Miller's Estate, Wyo., 541 P.2d 28 (1975); In re Randall's Estate, Wyo., 506 P.2d 432 (1973); and Park County ex rel. Park County Welfare Department v. Blackburn, supra. The dissenting opinion distinguishes between status of beneficiaries and their respective interests in the property of the estate, as compared with that which is in the estate and its attributes or to the intention of the testator. First, this distinction is not generally established by the voluminous case law. [5] More particularly, ademption is specifically an artificial conception of presumed intent now abrogated by the Wyoming legislature. The present Wyoming statutes are determinative in providing: Discover and make effective the intent of a decedent, § 2-1-102(a)(ii), and: A specific devisee has the right to the remaining specifically devised property and: (i) Any balance of the purchase price together with any security interest owing from a purchaser to the testator at death by reason of sale of the property   . Section 2-6-109. The general law quoted by the dissenting opinion on the retrospective implementation of legislation is not in issue, but also is not determinative. Two answers immediately arise. First, in considering the probate code in term and philosophy, there is clear cause for the declaration and determination that the intent was to apply this general law generally    unless the court determines its application in particular proceedings or parts thereof is not feasible or will work an injustice, in which event the former procedure [or provision] shall apply. Section 2-1-102(d). Secondly, the court is charged, not only by § 2-1-102, W.S. 1977, of the new probate code, but demonstrably by prior law with the ascertainment of testator intent. Section 2-1-102(a)(ii). See also § 2-6-105; Industrial National Bank of Rhode Island v. Austin, 100 R.I. 697, 210 A.2d 389 (1966); In re Works' Estate, 168 Kan. 539, 213 P.2d 998 (1950). The subject was well stated in the California case, In re Moore's Estate, 135 Cal. App.2d 122, 286 P.2d 939, 943-944 (1955): But California has outgrown this ancient doctrine in favor of effectuation of the actual intent of the testator so far as it can be discerned. Additionally, the law of probate is clear and universal that no vested expectancy exists in favor of an heir by virtue of the provisions of a will until death, or at least as long as the testator is competent to alter or amend. As to the tens of thousands of Wyoming wills presently outstanding, it can hardly be construed or asserted that either the testator or the attorney-scrivener only expects that the prior repealed law will apply in construction, effectuation and interpretation. Matter of Seymour's Estate, 93 N.M. 328, 600 P.2d 274, 277 (1979):    The Probate Code provided for a time lag prior to its effective date. This provided time for adjustments by parties who felt their will would need to be changed. The Code's planning period provision would not have been necessary if the Legislature had intended the Code to apply only to wills executed after its effective date. Assuredly, as of March 30, 1980, it could hardly be said that the grandchildren in this case had a vested right through lack of knowledge or counsel inattentiveness that the Read heirs would not inherit their devise after the installment contract was executed, until the 1979 Wyoming law would become effective. We hold that § 2-6-105, as well as other probate code provisions, mean what they say and are effective if the date of death follows the effective date of the probate code, unless then-existent vested rights are adversely affected. Furthermore, if the testator and his attorney want ademption, lapse, nonaccession, power of attorney exercised by residual clause, or exoneration, then by earlier stated express intent in the will, or now by amendment, that expressed intent of the testator can be provided as required by § 2-6-105 and § 2-1-102, rather than continuing to apply outmoded rules of implied intent or nonintended result. 2 Texas Tech.L.Rev., supra.