Opinion ID: 1385259
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Premarital Will Provision

Text: When there is a premarital will, W.Va. Code, 42-3-7 [1992] outlines what a surviving spouse is entitled to take from the decedent spouse's estate. W.Va.Code, 42-3-7(a) [1992], states, in relevant part: If a testator's surviving spouse married the testator after the testator executed his or her will, the surviving spouse is entitled to receive, as an intestate share no less than the value of the share of the estate he or she would have received if the testator had died intestate as to that portion of the testator's estate, if any, that neither is devised to a child of the testator who was born before the testator married the surviving spouse and who is not a child of the surviving spouse nor is devised or passes to a descendant of such a child[.] [4] (footnote added). W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992] explains that the portions of the estate which are devised to or which are passed to certain children or their descendants are excluded when the intestate share is calculated. Furthermore, W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992] lists certain conditions which bar the surviving spouse from receiving an intestate share when there is a premarital will. W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992] takes into consideration the possibility that the decedent spouse may have forgotten about the pre-existing will when marrying the surviving spouse, and if the decedent spouse had remembered the will, he would have included the surviving spouse in the will. As the writers of the Revised Uniform Probate Code note in the comment to the premarital will section (§ 2-301 of the Revised Uniform Probate Code), [t]his section reflects the view that the intestate share of the spouse in that portion of the testator's estate not devised to certain of the testator's children ... is what the testator would want the spouse to have if he or she had thought about the relationship of his or her old will to the new situation. Revised Article II of the Uniform Probate Code § 2-301, 8 U.L.A. 120 (Supp. 1994). Importantly, the writers of the Revised Uniform Probate Code stress that the premarital will section applies automatically and need not be elected. Id.
With this background in mind, the first issue is whether the circuit court erred in determining that when the testator executes a premarital will as provided by W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992], the surviving spouse of that testator is precluded from taking an elective share of the decedent spouse's estate pursuant to W.Va.Code, 42-3-1 [1992]. It is clear from the above discussion that the purposes underlying W.Va. Code, 42-3-1 [1992] and W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992] are different: W.Va.Code, 42-3-1 [1992] protects a surviving spouse from disinheritance and W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992] gives a surviving spouse an intestate share in the amount the decedent spouse would have given the surviving spouse had he or she thought about the effect of the premarital will. Common sense dictates that the intestate share provided for under W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992] does not preclude a surviving spouse from taking an elective share pursuant to W.Va.Code, 42-3-1 [1992]. To hold otherwise would allow a spouse to disinherit his or her spouse, thereby defeating the purpose behind the elective-share theory of the Revised Uniform Probate Code. [5] Moreover, the West Virginia legislature added language to W.Va.Code, 42-3-1 after it was enacted in 1992 which clarifies the fact that the intestate share is not preclusive of the elective share: The surviving spouse of a decedent who dies domiciled in this state has a right of election, against either the will or the intestate share, under the limitations and conditions stated in this part, to take an elective-share amount[.] W.Va.Code, 42-3-1(a) [1993], in relevant part (emphasis added). Accordingly, we hold that even though a testator executed a premarital will, as provided by W.Va.Code, 42-3-7 [1992], a surviving spouse of that testator is not precluded from taking an elective share of the decedent spouse's estate pursuant to W.Va. Code, 42-3-1 [1992]. [6]