Court Opinion

ID: 9764878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:42:32.375571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:02.073139
License: Public Domain

DORSEY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In construing a will, the intention of the testator is to be determined from the will itself by engaging in certain legal presumptions. If, after those presumptions have been applied, the will remains ambiguous, then extrinsic evidence is admissible in order to determine the testator’s intentions. The majority finds from the language a clear intent that the survivor take a life estate only, so as not to require the application of the presumptions the law provides as aids in will construction.
I, however, find the will to be unclear as to whether a life estate or fee simple title was intended to pass, and, therefore, must apply the aids the law gives us. After using the legal presumptions, I come to a decision contrary to that of the majority, but do not find that the will is ambiguous so as to justify the use of extrinsic evidence. I would affirm the trial court and hold that the will conveyed a fee simple estate to the survivor.
The primary object of inquiry in interpreting a will is determining the intent of the testator. Gee v. Read, 606 S.W.2d 677, 680 (Tex.1980). The first rule to be applied is that the law favors the conveyance of the largest estate the language of the will is capable of passing, over that of a lesser estate, unless the contrary clearly appears. McDowell v. Harris, 107 S.W.2d 647 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1937, writ dism'd); Rae v. Baker, 38 S.W.2d 366 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1931, writ ref'd). Such has been the statutory law since 1840 in this state insofar as an interest in land is concerned. Tex.Prop.Code Ann. § 5.001 (Vernon 1984). The language of the will is capable of being construed as passing a fee simple estate; thus, the rule should be applied.
The second rule to be applied is the positive presumption that one who has made a will does not intend that any property pass through intestacy. Zint v. Crofton, 563 S.W.2d 287 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1977, writ ref’d n.r.e.). In the present case, the majority’s holding that a life estate was created without the testate disposition of the remainder interest results in the remainder passing through intestacy, contrary to the well established presumption.
Neither of these rules of construction or presumptions are absolute. Where the testator clearly expresses an intention to create a life estate, the failure to dispose of the remainder does not defeat a life estate, nor convert it into a fee simple devise. Banks v. Banks, 229 S.W.2d 99 (Tex.Civ. App.—Austin 1950, writ ref’d n.r.e.). The entire holographic will of C.C. Banks that was the basis of the litigation in the Banks case was as follows:
Austin, Texas, July 2, 1932.
Last Will and Testament of L.C. Banks.
To my wife Flora Banks, I bequeath all my earthly possessions to have and to hold during her lifetime provided she does not remarry if she should marry my part of the property goes immediately to my son T.R. Banks.
I make my wife Flora Banks and my son T.R. Banks executors without bond.
As the court said in Banks, “[tjhere is not one word in the will to indicate that the testator intended that the estate given his wife should exceed an estate for life.” Id. at 104.
In the will presently before us, the surviving spouse is the only named beneficiary. As stated by the Court of Appeals in Wenzel v. Menchaca, 354 S.W.2d 635, 638 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1962, writ ref’d n.r.e.), “the will itself contains no hint or suggestion that the parties expected, or intended, that anyone should be benefited by the terms of their joint will except the survivor of them.”
In Wenzel v. Menchaca, the joint will declared the testators’ “intention and purpose to dispose of all the property, real, *301personal, and mixed which [they] and each of [them] own at the time of [their] death.” Id. The will provided in part:
we each will, bequeath and devise to the other surviving spouse all the property, real, personal or mixed of which we or either of us shall die seized, with further full power of disposition by sale by the surviving spouse, for and during the life of said surviving spouse.
Id. at 637.
The appellate court held that this will devised not a life estate, but a fee simple estate to the surviving spouse. The latter clause was determined not to limit or reduce the estate, but to be, at best, “uncertain and ambiguous in its meaning.” The Court explained that before it can be held that such language limited or reduced the absolute fee estate first devised, the intention of the testator to have that effect must appear clearly in the will. Id. at 639.
I would hold that Wenzel is controlling and that the latter clause in the instant case does not show a clear intent to limit or reduce the fee estate first granted. Because the will, as a matter of law, devises a fee simple estate to the surviving spouse, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to that effect.