Opinion ID: 2338705
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of Dependent Relative Revocation

Text: At issue here is the branch of the dependent relative revocation doctrine that, in effect, disregards conduct otherwise qualifying as a revocation of a will when that conduct, in the court's view, was based on an assumption by the testator that the will being revoked would be immediately replaced by a valid new will. It is the mistake of law branch of the doctrine. Two overlapping and confluent assumptions underlie the theory. One was expressed in a 1929 Annotation, A.G.S., Effect of Testator's Attempted Physical Alteration of Will After Execution, 62 A.L.R. 1367, 1401 (1929): It is based upon the presumption that the testator performed the act of revocation with a view and for the purpose of making some other disposition of his property in place of that which was canceled, and that there is, therefore, no reason to suppose that he would have made the change if he had been aware that it would have been wholly futile, but that his wishes with regard to his property, as expressed in his original will, would have remained unchanged, in the absence of any known and sufficient reason for changing them. See also the 1952 update of that Annotation, L.S. Tellier, Effect of Testator's Attempted Physical Alteration of Will After Execution, 24 A.L.R.2d 514, 554 (1952). A second, or perhaps simply a different articulation of the same, theory offered in support of the doctrine comes into play when, as is often the case, the effect of not disregarding the revocation is for the decedent's estate, or some part of it, to pass intestate. See In re Macomber's Will, 274 A.D. 724, 87 N.Y.S.2d 308, 312 (1949): The rule seeks to avoid intestacy where a will has once been duly executed and the acts of the testator in relation to its revocation seem conditional or equivocal. See also Goriczynski v. Poston, 248 Va. 271, 448 S.E.2d 423, 425 (1994). The law disfavors intestacies and requires that, whenever reasonably possible, wills be construed to avoid that result. Crawford v. Crawford, 266 Md. 711, 719, 296 A.2d 388, 392 (1972). Courts have made it clear, however, that the law's preference for a testate disposition is always subordinate to the intention of the testator, whether ascertained or presumed. See Charleston Library Soc. v. Citizens & Southern Nat. B., 200 S.C. 96, 20 S.E.2d 623, 632 (1942). Although, as noted, this Court has never applied the doctrine, we have discussed aspects of it in three cases. In Semmes v. Semmes, 7 H. & J. 388 (Md.1826), the testator had a will leaving his entire estate to his wife, in trust for herself and his infant son until the child reached 21, at which point one-half of the personal property was to go to her absolutely. When his wife predeceased him, the testator used a pen to obliterate his signature and those of the attesting witnesses and to write on the bottom of the will, In consequence of the death of my wife, it is become necessary to make another will. Id. at 389. Unfortunately, he died before making another will. The orphans' court refused to probate the existing will, and this Court affirmed that judgment. Our predecessors discussed the doctrine of dependent relative revocation as it had been applied in some English cases, notably Onions v. Tyrer, 1 P. Williams, 343 (1717), characterizing the doctrine as based on a mistake principle: The cancelling of a will is said to be an equivocal act, and not to effect a revocation, unless it is done animo revocandi. And where it is a dependent relative act, done with reference to another, which is meant and supposed to be good and effectual, it may be a revocation or not, as to that to which it relates is efficacious or not. As where a man having duly executed one will, afterwards causes another to be prepared, and supposing the second to be duly executed, under that impression alone cancels the first. In such case it has been held, that on the second turning out not to have been duly executed, the cancelling the first, being done by mistake and misapprehension, would not operate as a revocation. 7 H. & J. at 390-91. Having so characterized the doctrine, the Court made clear that the doctrine would never apply where a man has deliberately and intentionally cancelled his will, as in this case, in the entire absence of all accident or mistake, notwithstanding he may, at the time, have intended to make another will. Id. at 391. We accepted, from the evidence, that the testator did not intend to die intestate but held that however that may be, we cannot make a will for him. Id. On its facts, Semmes was similar to the situation in In re Emernecker's Estate, supra, 218 Pa. 369, 67 A. 701, where the revocation also was not actually accompanied by the preparation of a new, albeit ineffective will. Our second brush with the doctrine was in Safe Dep. & Trust Co. v. Thom, 117 Md. 154, 83 A. 45 (1912), which presented somewhat the same situation as Semmes, although with different facts. The testatrix, who had five children, had signed a valid will in March, 1907. Item I of that will left $10,000 in cash to four of the children; Item II left $10,000 in trust for the fifth child, who apparently was mentally disabled. After providing for some additional small bequests, the testatrix left the residue of her estate in trust, with one-fifth of the income to be paid quarterly to each of the five children during their lives (the disabled son's share to be paid to his trustee), and a one-fifth share of the corpus to be paid to the children of any deceased child. In April, 1910, the testatrix informed her attorney that she wanted to change her will to leave the one-fifth shares to the four competent children outright and not in trust and to make a number of other minor bequests. She said that she would prepare and send to the lawyer a list of those bequests. In June, 1910, she informed him that she had rubbed out the first provision in her will, leaving the competent children $10,000 each, since they would be getting their full one-fifth share absolutely. The lawyer stated that he told the testatrix not to attempt to change the will in that manner. The testatrix died without ever making a new will or sending the lawyer the list of new bequests. Among her papers was the 1907 will on which the names of the four children in Item I had been rubbed but the letters then relined or retraced in pencil. Accompanying the will, in a sealed envelope, was a letter to the lawyer containing the list of bequests. With the agreement of all parties, the trustee named in the will offered the will for probate, following which two of the competent children petitioned the orphans' court to declare the will cancelled and revoked by reason of the erasure. The court, over objection, granted the petition and denied probate. We reversed. Although, as in Semmes, we discussed the doctrine of dependent relative revocation, that was not the basis for our decision. Rather, we concluded from the evidence that there was no revocation of the will in the first instance. The act that might be regarded as a revocationthe attempt to obliterate a provisionwas incomplete, not in the sense that the clause was not entirely rubbed out or obliterated, but in the sense that that which was begun was not finished and was abandoned. Id. at 163, 83 A. 45. Before completing any obliteration, we noted, the testatrix changed her mind and retraced the letters rubbed, thereby indicating an intent not to revoke the instrument. Our most recent consideration of the doctrine came in Arrowsmith v. Mercantile-Safe Deposit, supra, 313 Md. 334, 545 A.2d 674. The testator there left three relevant wills, drawn, respectively in 1966, 1976, and 1982, the earlier wills each being expressly revoked by a provision in the next succeeding will. All three wills purported to exercise a power of appointment given to the testator through a 1953 deed of trust from his mother. When the testator died in 1983, a question was raised whether the appointment in the 1982 will violated the rule against perpetuities. Indeed, the circuit court held that there was such a violation, a conclusion that we affirmed. The power as exercised in the 1966 will did not present a perpetuities problem, and, in an effort to save the testamentary disposition and not have the property distributed under the 1953 deed of trust in default of an appointment, the parties who would be benefitted by that approach asked the court to sustain the 1966 provision under a theory of dependent relative revocation. The theory seemed to be that, had the testator been aware that his exercise of the power in the 1976 and 1982 wills would be ineffective, he would not have revoked the 1966 provision. As was the case in Semmes and Safe Dep. & Trust Co., it was not necessary for us in Arrowsmith to determine whether we would accept the doctrine in any of its manifestations, for even if accepted into Maryland law, it could not be applied as urged. At 345, 545 A.2d 674, we noted that [p]lucking the perpetuities saving clause from the 1966 will and inserting it in the 1982 will is inconsistent with the theoretical justification for the doctrine. Harking back to what the Court said in Semmes, Judge Rodowsky pointed out that this Court is neither empowered to write a will for [the testator] nor structure a will that differs from any will which [the testator] ever executed. Id. at 350, 545 A.2d 674. This case presents for the first time a situation in which the doctrine might be applied and in which other courts have applied it. It is not a situation, however, in which we believe it appropriate to apply the doctrine. It is important to keep in mind that, in the context now before us, the doctrine rests on a fiction that is, in turn, supported only by an assumption as to what Ms. Binco would have done had she known that her 1990 will was invalid. As Professor Warren observed in his law review article, [t]he inquiry should always be: What would the testator have desired had he been informed of the true situation? Joseph Warren, Dependent Relative Revocation, supra, 33 Harv. L.Rev. at 345. The most rational and obvious answer to that question, of course, is that the testator would have desired to make the new instrument effective, and, if presumed intent were to control, the court would simply overlook the statutory deficiency and probate the new will, rather than overlook the legal effect of an otherwise deliberate revocation and probate the old one. That is an option the law does not permit, however. We thus must look for secondary, fictional intentions never actually possessed by Ms. Binco. The real question is what Ms. Binco would have wanted to do if she had been told that she was unable to make a new will: would she have preferred her estate to pass under the existing (1985) will to persons she had decided to remove as beneficiaries, or would she have preferred that her estate pass intestate to her brother? In attempting to arrive at a reasonable answer to that kind of question, courts have considered all of the relevant circumstances surrounding the revocationthe manner in which the existing will was revoked, [4] whether a new will was actually made and, if so, how contemporaneous the revocation and the making of the new will were, [5] parol evidence regarding the testator's intentions, and the differences and similarities between the old and new wills. The courts recognize that the question is always one of presumed intent. In many cases, because the other evidence is either inconclusive or nonexistent, the principal focus is on the differences and similarities between the two instruments. In that regard, the courts have generally refused to apply the doctrine unless the two instruments reflect a common dispositive scheme. See In re Lubbe's Estate, 142 So.2d 130 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1962), overruled on other grounds by In re Estate of Johnson, 359 So.2d 425 (Fla.1978); In re Heazle's Estate, 72 Idaho 307, 240 P.2d 821 (1952); Wallingford's Ex'r v. Wallingford's Adm'r, 266 Ky. 723, 99 S.W.2d 729 (1936); In re Houghten's Estate, 310 Mich. 613, 17 N.W.2d 774 (1945); Watson v. Landvatter, 517 S.W.2d 117 (Mo.1974); Guardianship & Conserv. of Estate of Tennant, 220 Mont. 78, 714 P.2d 122 (1986); Matter of Estate of Patten, 179 Mont. 299, 587 P.2d 1307 (1978); Flanders v. White, 142 Or. 375, 18 P.2d 823 (1933); In re Dougan's Estate, 152 Or. 235, 53 P.2d 511 (1936); In re Crooks' Estate, 388 Pa. 125, 130 A.2d 185 (1957); Chambers v. Chambers, 542 S.W.2d 901 (Tex.Civ.App. 1976); and cf. Ruth v. Ruth, 123 A.2d 132 (Del.Ch.1956); but compare Carter v. First United Methodist Church, 246 Ga. 352, 271 S.E.2d 493 (1980) and In re Macomber's Will, 274 A.D. 724, 87 N.Y.S.2d 308 (1949). Conversely, courts that have applied the doctrine have looked to the similarity of the new and old dispositive schemes as a basis for concluding that the testator indeed intended the revocation to be conditional and that he would have preferred to have his estate pass under the old will rather than through an intestacy. See In re Kaufman's Estate, 25 Cal.2d 854, 155 P.2d 831 (1945); In re Cuneo's Estate, 60 Cal.2d 196, 32 Cal.Rptr. 409, 384 P.2d 1 (1963); La Croix v. Senecal, 140 Conn. 311, 99 A.2d 115 (1953); In re Nutting's Estate, 82 F.Supp. 689 (D.D.C. 1949); In re Jones, 352 So.2d 1182 (Fla.Dist. Ct.App.1977); Blackford v. Anderson, 226 Iowa 1138, 286 N.W. 735 (1939); In re McKay's Estate, 347 Mich. 153, 79 N.W.2d 597 (1956); Charleston Library Soc. v. Citizens & Southern Nat. B., 200 S.C. 96, 20 S.E.2d 623 (1942); Bell v. Timmins, 190 Va. 648, 58 S.E.2d 55 (1950). In the case before us, Ms. Binco indicated a clear intent to revoke her 1985 will by writing VOID on the back of it. Unlike the situation in Safe Dep. & Trust Co., supra, 117 Md. 154, 83 A. 45, there is nothing ambiguous about her intent to revoke that will. Also unlike that case and Semmes, however, she did contemporaneously handwrite a new will, thereby indicating with some clarity that her act of revocation was based on her mistaken belief that the new will was valid and would replace the old one. The confluent inference, that she intended to revoke the 1985 will based on her belief that it would be superseded by the 1990 will, does not alone justify application of the doctrine of dependent relative revocation. We must still search for that fictional presumed intent of what she would have done had she been informed that she could not make a new will. There was some evidence that Ms. Binco did not have a good relationship with her brother and would not have desired that he take any part of her estate. That evidence was contradicted, however, by testimony that appellant and his sister did have a cordial relationship. We turn, then, to a comparison of the 1985 and 1990 wills and, as noted, we find two very different dispositive schemes. Apart from the fact that the 1990 will did not contain a residuary clause and may not have effected an entirely testate disposition, the fact is that, with the possible exception of the First Church of God, whose status under the 1990 will is, at best, unclear, none of the beneficiaries under the 1985 will were named in the 1990 will. The 1990 will replaced them all, indicating that Ms. Binco did not wish any of them (again with the possible exception of the First Church of God) to be benefitted. The effect of applying the doctrine and disregarding her revocation, however, is precisely to do what she clearly did not want doneto leave her estate to people she had intended to disinherit. We cannot fairly presume such an intent on her part; nor should the lower courts have done so. We need not decide in this case whether the doctrine of dependent relative revocation, as articulated above, is part of Maryland law and, if it is, the circumstances under which it may properly be applied. It cannot be applied under the circumstances of this case. JUDGMENT REVERSED; CASE REMANDED TO CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE COUNTY WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REVERSE ORDER OF ORPHANS' COURT ADMITTING 1985 WILL TO PROBATE; APPELLEE TO PAY THE COSTS. ELDRIDGE, J., concurs in the result only.