Court Opinion

ID: 9422748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:04:16.68459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:39.192686
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Clark,
whom
Mr. Justice Douglas joins, dissenting.
The question to be determined under Free v. Bland, 369 U. S. 663 (1962), is whether or not the purchase of the bonds by the deceased operated to deprive his surviving wife of her one-half undivided interest in the community property of the spouses. If that purchase operated to deprive her of her one-half interest in the community property, it is tantamount to a constructive fraud upon the community property, and under Free v. Bland, supra, relief must be granted to the extent of making whole the surviving wife’s undivided interest.
It therefore appears to me that the proper order in this case would be to vacate the judgment and remand the case for consideration of the following matters, all of which involve an interpretation of Washington law:
(1) Was the purchase of the bonds and the designation of petitioner as beneficiary an act within the deceased husband’s statutory (Wash. Rev. Code *314§ 26.16.030) management powers, or did the surviving spouse consent to, or subsequently ratify, the transaction? If either question is answered in the affirmative, the bonds must be delivered to the petitioner. If both questions are answered in the negative, then
(2) What is the amount of the debts, both community and separate, chargeable to the estate? And
(3) Is there sufficient property after the payment of these debts for the surviving wife to receive her one-half undivided interest in the community estate without having to resort to the bonds? If this question is answered in the affirmative, the bonds must be delivered to the petitioner and the surviving wife must receive her one-half undivided interest in the community property from that remaining. If there is not sufficient property in the estate to satisfy the surviving wife’s undivided one-half interest from that remainder, then the bonds must be subjected to this deficit, after which the balance of the bonds, if any, would go to the petitioner.
The opinion of the Court conjectures that it might be the law of Washington that a surviving spouse has a one-half interest in each item of the community estate and that if this be so, then allowing all of the bonds to pass to the designated beneficiary would work an involuntary conversion of the spouse’s one-half interest in those bonds. The proposition that a spouse has such an interest in each item is of doubtful validity and there is no Washington authority to support it. Further, there is, at the very least, a question of whether such state law, even if it did exist, should be allowed to override the beneficiary designations of the federal bonds. The Court is passing upon this important issue even though it has not been considered by the parties in either their briefs or oral argument.