Court Opinion

ID: 9672566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:57:24.117812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:16.506423
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Justice.
I respectfully dissent. The court properly recognizes that the proceeds of the several insurance policies were community property. It reasons, however, that the same passed to the husband’s estate under the terms of Section 45 of the Probate Code, because the wife left no will, was survived by no child or other descendant, and is deemed to have died first by virtue of the provisions of Section 47(e). And yet the policy proceeds would be owned equally by the estates of the husband and wife if the estate of the former had been designated as primary beneficiary in the first instance. Even if some third person had been named as beneficiary, the community interest of the wife would not be affected by the simultaneous deaths of the husband and the beneficiary. Her heirs are thus deprived of any share of the insurance proceeds merely because the husband sought to provide for her security and protection by naming her as the beneficiary. Where the literal language of a statute leads to such absurdly inconsistent and unjust results, it seems to me that we should delve a bit more deeply for the legislative intent.
Section 47 of the Probate Code “operates on the principle that, where title to property or its devolution depends upon fixing the relative times of death and it is impossible to prove the order of death, the property of each decedent passes as if he or she were presumed to survive persons dying in the same disaster who would take only by reason of their survival. The result is that *699property rights of one who must survive the owner in order to realize such are cut off and the property passes through the deceased owner’s estate. Since each spouse is considered to be the owner of one half -of the community property, the community property section of the act extends the presumption of survival to both spouses, when order of death is uncertain, providing that one half of the community property passes as if each spouse had survived. The insurance provision * * * creates a conclusive presumption that the insured survived, thus defeating a beneficiary’s right to receive the proceeds of a policy where his right is dependent upon his surviving the insured.” 41 Tex.L.Rev. 832.
The paramount purpose of the Legislature was to make certain that property would pass and vest as if the owner thereof had survived. This is the effect of Section 47(e) in the ordinary case where the insured is the owner of the policy and the beneficiary has only a contract right to receive the proceeds in the event he survives. When a community insurance policy is taken out on the life of the husband, he has the power to designate the wife or some third party as primary or alternate bene-ficary. The contract will then be enforced in accordance with its terms unless the transaction is fraudulent as to the wife. If the wife is primary beneficiary and a third party has been designated as alternate beneficiary, the latter would, by virtue of the provisions of Section 47(e) and our decisions relating to third party beneficiary contracts and the powers of the husband as manager of the community estate, be entitled to the proceeds upon the simultaneous deaths of the husband and wife. It was this latter situation that led to the insertion of the exception at the conclusion of Section 47(b).
Under the court’s interpretation of Section 47, the two principles declared by the lawmakers, i. e., devolution of property as if the owner survived and distribution of insurance proceeds as if the designated beneficiary died first, are entirely consistent in most instances but utterly inconsistent when a community insurance policy on the life of the husband is payable to the wife and there is no alternative beneficiary other than the estate of the insured. From a consideration of the entire statute, it seems clear to me that the presumption of survival created by Section 47(e) governs only the right of a beneficiary to take in that capacity. This construction harmonizes all provisions of the law and carries out the legislative scheme for distribution of property in cases of simultaneous death. In my opinion devolution of the wife’s community interest in policies on the life of the husband is not affected by Section 47(e), and the same should be held to pass and vest in accordance with the provisions of Section 47(b). I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals.