Court Opinion

ID: 9657876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:40:09.287781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.063339
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result and in the opinion except for the statement in Division I, that holds extrinsic evidence is inadmissible to determine intent except where there is said to be an ambiguity. Wills, like contracts, are composed of words. We have held the meaning of words, as used in contracts, to be susceptible to extrinsic evidence as an aid to interpretation. This on the theory words, de-hors the circumstances under which they are used, never fully and completely express the meaning of the person using them. Hamilton v. Wosepka, Iowa, 154 N.W.2d 164.
In this case the extrinsic evidence is not sufficient to indicate any meaning other than the plain and ordinary meaning to be given to the terms. But this is not to say evidence of the circumstances surrounding the use of the terms is inadmissible. Such strictures divert us away from a quest for the true intent of the testator; not toward it.
In several recent cases we have repeated the following rules: “Our position in will construction cases was well summarized in In re Estate of Larson, 256 Iowa 1392, 1395, 131 N.W.2d 503, 504. There we said the law is well settled (1) the testator’s intent is the polestar and if expressed must prevail; (2) his intent must be gathered from a consideration of (a) all the language contained in the four corners of his will, (b) his scheme of distribution, (c) the circumstances surrounding him at the time he made his will, (d) the existing facts; and (3) technical rules or canons of construction should be resorted to only if the *873language of the will is clearly ambiguous or conflicting or the testator’s intent is for any reason uncertain. (Citations).” (Emphasis supplied). In the Matter of the Estate of Maude Leber Lamp, Iowa, 172 N.W.2d 254 (opinion filed November 12, 1969).
These rules are consistent with what is said in IX Wigmore on Evidence, section 2470, page 227: “The truth had finally to be recognized that words always need interpretation; that the process of interpretation inherently and invariably means the ascertainment of the association between words and external objects; and that this makes inevitable a free resort to extrinsic matters for applying and enforcing the document. ‘Words must be translated into things and facts.’ Instead of the fallacious notion that ‘there should be interpretation only when it is needed’, the fact is that there must always be interpretation. Perhaps the range of search need not be extensive, and perhaps the application of the document will be apparent at the first view; but there must always be a traveling out of the document, a comparison of its words with people and things. * * (Emphasis by author).
The rules just quoted are workable and leave room for the admission of extrinsic evidence as an aid to interpretation. Both the rules announced by the majority and the rules quoted in this special concurrence have been followed in the past. Often they are quoted in the same case. In the Matter of the Estate of Lamp, supra. They are inconsistent. I would follow one set of rules rather than move from one to the other as the exigency of the individual case dictates.