Court Opinion

ID: 9726365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:46:26.861911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:26.500725
License: Public Domain

GARDNER, P. J.
I dissent.
I agree with the majority that an annuity must bear a prorated portion of death taxes absent a contrary expression by the testator. However, I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which holds that this holographic codicil expresses an intention that the recipient of the annuity be relieved from her share of death taxes.
As the majority observe, apportionment of taxes is the general rule unless there is a clear and unambiguous direction to the contrary. I find no such clear and unambiguous directon in this codicil. If the decedent had wanted this bequest to be handled in a different manner than other bequests, all she had to do was add two words—“without taxes.”
The decedent executed a formal, witnessed will and three formal, witnessed codicils. In these she made specific bequests to five individuals. I assume she held these persons in some esteem and did not get their names out of the telephone directory. I infer that they were friends, associates, compánions and may have even been former servants. Then she left part of her estate to her children for whom I assume she also had some affection.
The trouble is that this will and these codicils were drafted by lawyers in the usual dull, dry legalese and are conspicuously devoid of any expression of personal affection or interest. Then this old, old lady drew a handwritten codicil leaving an interest in her estate to her nurse. In nonlegal style she expressed some personal ^interest in the matter. From this set of circumstances and from the use in the codicil of certain phrases such as “like a daughter”, “a faithful companion”, and “I owe her,” the majority now puts this nurse in a different category from the other objects of this lady’s bounty and lets these individuals not only pay their portion of the taxes but pay the nurse’s portion as well. I can’t read into this codicil any clear and unambiguous direction that this *121nurse is to be treated in a different fashion than the children or the other individuals named in specific bequests.
I agree with the majority that the decedent would probably be appalled at the diminution of this bequest by reason of taxes. However, I am sure she would have been just as appalled at the diminution in the estate left to her children and the other recipients of specific bequests. I venture to say she would even be more appalled were she to discover that by the interpretation put on this codicil by the majority, the other objects of her bounty are going to have to pay this nurse’s share of the taxes. I decline to elevate this holographic codicil to a preferred position over the rest of the will.
I would reverse the trial court and allow this nurse to pay her proportionate share of taxes because there is no clear and unambiguous direction to the contrary. I note in passing that in a few years the nurse is going to get her full $1,000 per month. The other specific legatees are going to receive no such consideration.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 5, 1981.