Opinion ID: 1178057
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: provision for surviving spouse

Text: Section 75-2-301 of the Utah Probate Code, which is quoted in full in the footnote and which is identical to the corresponding section of the Uniform Probate Code, [1] has never been construed by this Court, and has rarely been construed in other jurisdictions. See annotations to Uniform Probate Code § 2-301, 8 U.L.A. 131 (Supp. 1982). The section is obviously designed to avoid the unintentional disinheritance of the spouse of a decedent who executed a will prior to the marriage and neglected to revise it afterwards. According to the Editorial Board Comment, the section reflects the view that the intestate share of the spouse is what the decedent would [have] want[ed] the spouse to have if he had thought about the relationship of his old will to the new situation. Appellant's contention that she is an omitted spouse for whom the testator fail[ed] to provide by will, § 75-2-301, must be considered against the background of the common law and succeeding statutes. At common law, a man's will was revoked by his subsequent marriage and birth of issue. T. Atkinson, Handbook of the Law of Wills § 85 (2d ed. 1953). Later legislation in England and most states in this country provided that a man's will was revoked merely by marriage if his wife survived him and was not provided for by a marriage settlement or in the will or otherwise mentioned so as to negate an intention to revoke. See Bordwell, The Statute Law of Wills, 14 Iowa L.Rev. 283, 298-301 (1929). Utah had such a statute from the earliest days of statehood until it was repealed by enactment of the Uniform Probate Code. Utah Rev.Stats., 1898, § 2754; U.C.A., 1953, §§ 74-1-24 and -25 (repealed). Although the Uniform Probate Code does not achieve its result by specifying revocation of the will, its requirement that an omitted spouse not provided for in the will receive the share he or she would have inherited by intestacy clearly reflects a familiar and long-standing feature of the law of wills. Appellant contends that the testator's bequests of corporate stock in the 1977 and 1979 codicils do not constitute a provi[sion] by will for his surviving spouse that would preclude the applicability of § 75-2-301 because (1) they were not made in contemplation of her marriage to the testator, and (2) their value was too minimal in relation to the overall value of the estate. (1) Some statutes in force when the Uniform Probate Code was drafted specified that in order to avoid the rule of revocation by marriage a provision for the surviving spouse must have been included in the will in contemplation of marriage. In other words, the will provision must have been executed in favor of the recipient in his or her capacity as a prospective spouse. Even where there was no such requirement in the statute, some cases have imposed that requirement, though others have not. See generally 2 W. Boyce & D. Parker, Page on Wills § 21.91 (1960); Annot., 97 A.L.R.2d 1026 (1964); 79 Am.Jur.2d Wills §§ 582-583 (1975). We are aware of no cases determining whether a will provision in favor of a surviving spouse can preclude the applicability of the omitted spouse provision in § 2-301 of the Uniform Probate Code (U.C.A., 1953, § 75-2-301) where the testamentary gift was not made in contemplation of marriage. Even though contemplation of marriage figured prominently in prior statutes and case law, the Uniform Probate Code makes no mention of that legal requirement. In a statute so carefully drafted, that omission must have been deliberate. We think it would therefore be inappropriate for the contemplation of marriage requirement to be re-engrafted by judicial decision. The interpretive problems entailed in applying that requirement to various testamentary dispositions, described in Estate of Ganier, Fla.App., 402 So.2d 418, 421 n. 3 (1981), confirm the wisdom of avoiding that requirement unless it is clearly imposed by statute. Here it is not. We therefore reject appellant's first argument and hold that a testator can provide by will for his surviving spouse in such a way as to prevent the recipient from being an omitted spouse under § 75-2-301 even though the testamentary gift was not made in contemplation of marriage. This was the holding in a case that construed a statute with wording similar to this provision of the Uniform Probate Code. Estate of Ganier, supra . We find that reasoning persuasive of the same result in this case. (2) Appellant contends that even if the testamentary gift need not be made in contemplation of marriage, by his bequest in this case the testator fail[ed] to provide by will for his surviving spouse within the meaning of § 75-2-301 because of the relatively minimal value of the bequest. Appellant argues that allowing a minimal bequest made years before marriage to effectively disinherit a spouse who would otherwise be entitled to an intestate share would contradict the underlying purpose of the omitted spouse provision. Section 75-2-301 is designed to effectuate, not to circumvent, the testator's intent. [2] Pursuant to that purpose, the section specifies the intestate share for the omitted spouse on the theory that it fairly approximates what the testator would have bequeathed if he had executed a will after the marriage. But that theory is inapplicable where the will contains any bequest to the spouse that is clearly made in contemplation of their marriage. As was well stated by a California court: The determinative fact is not the size of the gift to the contemplated spouse but the fact that the testator has made a provision affirmatively showing that he had the particular person in mind as a contemplated spouse. Estate of Bridler, 165 Cal. App.2d 486, 488, 331 P.2d 1028, 1029 (1958). To grant an intestate share where the will contains a gift made in contemplation of marriage would contradict the testator's intent. In that circumstance, the omitted spouse provision in § 75-2-301 would be inapplicable, and the surviving spouse would be left to pursue other statutory remedies. The more difficult circumstance  the one present in this case  is where the testamentary gift cannot be shown to have been made in contemplation of marriage. Here, the testator's intent cannot be dispositive on the treatment of the omitted spouse because it is equivocal: he may simply have neglected to amend his will after marriage, or he may have re-examined the will and decided that his previous testamentary gift would adequately provide for his new spouse. In such a case, the surviving spouse should be permitted to show that in the circumstances presented, including the provision of a particular testamentary gift, the testator fail[ed] to provide by will for his surviving spouse within the meaning of § 75-2-301. Among the considerations relevant to that factual conclusion are (1) the alternative takers under the will, (2) the dollar value of the testamentary gift to the surviving spouse, (3) the fraction of the estate represented by that gift, (4) whether comparable gifts were made to other persons, (5) the length of time between execution of the testamentary instrument and the marriage, (6) the duration of the marriage, (7) any inter vivos gifts the testator has made to the surviving spouse, and (8) the separate property and needs of the surviving spouse. For example, if a testator's will made token gifts to various friends, one of whom married the testator years later, the original gift is not likely to qualify as a provi[sion] by will for his surviving spouse... . The burden of establishing that a particular testamentary gift did not provide for the surviving spouse for purposes of § 75-2-301 is on the surviving spouse. In order to satisfy that burden, the evidence must be sufficient to establish that the testamentary gift specified before the marriage could not reasonably represent this testator's effort to provide by will for his surviving spouse. § 75-2-301. In this case, the pending motions made it evident that both parties were willing to submit the issue on the undisputed facts before the district court. Though amounting to only four percent of the total value of the estate, appellant's $436,000 testamentary gift had a substantial dollar value, the marriage occurred a relatively short time after the codicils were executed, the marriage was extremely brief, and the record suggests that the testator made significant inter vivos gifts to appellant. Consequently, there was substantial support for the district court's conclusion that this was not a case where the testator had fail[ed] to provide by will for his surviving spouse, and the omitted spouse provision in § 75-2-301 was therefore inapplicable. The dismissal of appellant's petition for relief as an omitted spouse is therefore affirmed. [3]