Court Opinion

ID: 9770301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:58:01.121788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:16.337878
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
My view of the proper construction of § 474.420, RSMo 1978, coincides with that of Judge Stockard who wrote an opinion in this case in Division Two before it was transferred to the Court en banc pursuant to Mo.Const. Art. V, § 9. What follows, without quotation marks, is a substantial portion of that opinion.
The first consideration is how § 474.420 should be construed with respect to the issue of whether, by its terms, it revoked the bequest to respondent in deceased’s will. Certainly § 474.420 is in derogation of the common law because the common law did not regard divorce as such a changed circumstance from which revocation of a will could be implied. See 2 Page on Wills (Bowe-Parker Revision, 1960), § 21.101, p. 523. Such was not the case where a testator married and then had issue of the marriage. A revocation of a will was then effected under the common law, which was codified in this State by former § 468.250, RSMo 1949 (repealed, Laws 1955, p. 385 § A). The only change of circumstance which now revokes a will is that of a divorce as provided in § 474.420. Our first obligation is to determine whether that statute should be strictly construed.
Section 1.010, RSMo 1978, after adopting the common law and statutes and acts of parliament of England, provides by an amendment adopted in 1917 (Laws of Missouri 1917, p. 324), that “ * * * no act of the general assembly or law of this state shall be held to be invalid, or limited in its scope or effect by the courts of this state, for the reason that it is in derogation of, or in conflict with, the common law, or with such statutes or acts of parliament; but all acts of the general assembly, or laws, shall be liberally construed, so as to effectuate the true intent and meaning thereof.” Although there are cases since the enactment of the amendment to § 1.010 which announce that statutes in derogation of the common law are to be strictly construed, for example, Young Women’s Christian Ass’n v. LaPresto, 169 S.W.2d 78 (Mo.App.1943), and Watkins v. Wattle, 558 S.W.2d 705, 711 (Mo.App.1977), the latest pronouncement by this Court is Women’s Christian Ass’n v. Brown, 354 Mo. 700, 190 S.W.2d 900 (Mo.1945), wherein it was noted that the rule of strict construction (in zoning laws) because they are in derogation of the common law was abolished in this State in 1917.
A strict construction of § 474.420 would require that it be applied indiscriminately to all cases where there was a divorce, and that a provision for the divorced spouse would be revoked by operation of law regardless of the status of the parties at the time the will was made. The statute speaks of a revocation of all provisions in the will in favor of the testator’s spouse so divorced, and the fair intendment must be that the revocation be limited to one who was a spouse at the time the will was made. That was the situation in Rookstool v. Neaf, *369377 S.W.2d 402, 409 (Mo.1964), where the statute was applied. Here the facts are different. Testator made his will, in which he named respondent as his sole beneficiary, one year, eight months and eleven days before they were married. If they had not been married, there is no question that respondent would be entitled to take under the will. The fact that the will was made prior to the marriage distinguishes this case from the Rookstool case, and compels the conclusion that respondent is the beneficiary of and entitled to take under the will.
The above conclusion is supported by cases from Ohio where, by reason of a statute allowing revocation because of “changed circumstances,” the court has by decision adopted the view that provisions of a will for a former wife are impliedly revoked by a divorce, but only where there is a property settlement in connection with the divorce. See Younker v. Johnson, 160 Ohio St. 409, 52 Ohio Ops. 320, 116 N.E.2d 715 (1954). There are, however, two Ohio cases involving facts similar to those in this case. In Charlton v. Miller, 27 Ohio St. 298, 22 Am.Rep. 307 (1875), the facts were these: On March 13, 1856, testator and Elizabeth Jennings were engaged to be married. On that same day testator made his will giving to Elizabeth Jennings (her then name), $1,000 payable in one year after his death. On the same day they were married. Testator and Elizabeth lived together until the following November when she abandoned him. In 1861, testator obtained a divorce, and he died in 1866. The court adopted appellant ex-spouse’s contentions in these words:
“Had the testator died before the marriage contemplated, the right of the plaintiff to the bequest can not be doubted, for the marriage was not a condition precedent to the legacy. Nor is the case different if, after marriage, she ceases to be his wife, for the legacy is not conditioned upon her survivorship as his widow. If, then, her right to the legacy does not depend upon the marriage, it can not be lost by the divorce, for she can lose no more by the divorce than she gained by the marriage.”
The second case is Codner v. Caldwell, 156 Ohio St. 197, 46 Ohio Ops. 89, 101 N.E.2d 901 (1951). There, by codicil, testatrix, on November 4, 1937, gave her whole estate to Caldwell, whom she married on November 19, 1938. The codicil made no mention of any prospective marital relationship, and testatrix and Caldwell were divorced on September 21, 1948, prior to which they entered into an agreement purporting to be an adjustment and settlement of all property rights between them but in which no mention was made of any testamentary matters. Testatrix died without heirs of her body, and without revoking the will, within five months after the divorce. The court said:
“[MJoreover, Ada DeVinney lived for about five months after the property settlement and divorce, and during that time she did not destroy her will and codicils previously made or execute a new will disposing of her property in a different manner. She was an unmarried woman when she executed the second codicil to her will and died an unmarried woman without having altered it in any way. In such a setting it seems to us that the intention of testatrix to revoke the testamentary disposition of her property previously made is not so plainly exhibited as to warrant the conclusion that there was an implied revocation as a matter of law.” 101 N.E.2d at 905.
A reasonable construction of § 474.420 is that it is intended to apply only to the revocation of a will made during a marriage, and we consider this construction to be buttressed by the reasoning of the Ohio cases, supra. In this case, the divorce merely restored the status quo of being single persons enjoyed by the parties at the time the will was made, and the divorce should not affect the bequest of the will made prior to the marriage, that bequest otherwise being valid. Had the legislature intended that a will, made at any time prior to the testator being divorced, would be revoked by a divorce, it could have said so.
I would affirm the judgment.