Court Opinion

ID: 9685584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:50:25.665131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:08.038755
License: Public Domain

White, C. J.,
concurring.
The single issue involved is the construction of the language used in the devise and bequest to four named individuals, two of whom predeceased the testator, “equally, share and share alike, and to their heirs, devisees and legatees as set forth in their Last Wills and Testaments, to be theirs absolutely, in fee simple, without condition or limitation.” (Emphasis supplied.)
While concurring with the majority opinion which holds that the interests of the two who predeceased the testator lapsed into the residuary estate, I feel that the proper rationale controls a finding that the above devise is of a fee simple absolute. To the extent, if at all, that the phrase “and to their heirs, devisees and legatees as set forth in their Last Wills and Testaments” can be considered as creating a power of appointment, it is repugnant to the base fee and must fail. Grant v. Hover, 103 Neb. 730, 174 N. W. 317; State Bank of Jansen v. Thiessen, 137 Neb. 426, 289 N. W. 791; Watson v. Dalton, 146 Neb. 86, 20 N. W. 2d 610; Andrews v. Hall, 156 Neb. 817, 58 N. W. 2d 201, 42 A. L. R. 2d 1239.
The compelling consideration in construing the devise as a fee simple absolute is the manifestation of the testator’s intent and the last portion of the phrase, to-wit: “to be theirs absolutely, in fee simple, without condition or limitation.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The dissent focuses upon the language used in the noncontestability clause of paragraph fourth: “* * * if any devisee, legatee, or beneficiary under this, my Last Will and Testament, or any person claiming under or through any devisee} legatee or beneficiary * * *.” (Emphasis supplied.)
This language, it is argued, may only be effective if there is a substitution of the devisees or legatees for the four named beneficiaries who may have predeceased the testator. Thus, it is argued, the testator must have in*463tended that a power of appointment be created in the four named beneficiaries. It seems obvious, however, that this clause in the fourth paragraph is mere boilerplate, and that it should not be construed as evidencing an intent to create a power of appointment. Had the testator intended to create such a power in the four named beneficiaries, she could have done so in specific terms. To argue that she has created a power by extrapolating from the language of the noncontestability clause seems anomalous at best. In order to establish such a power, as this case has shown, it is necessary to construe language which, as appellees concede, is patently ambiguous in this regard in the second paragraph. This is directly contrary to the purpose of the noncontestability clause itself. It seems quite clear that the testator would not have been so meticulously subtle with respect to the noncontestability clause, yet so brazenly unsophisticated with respect to the dispositive provision of her will. Additonally, it seems clear that because of the specificity used by the testator in determining who was going to share in her estate, there was no intent to create a power of appointment, especially since it may be created only by the use of clear and unambiguous language. For these reasons, I concur in the result of the majority opinion.