Court Opinion

ID: 9585444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:00:30.303393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:47:09.426010
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
dissenting. By Code § 113-106 any person is empowered to dispose of his property by a will, provided only that such disposition is consistent with the laws and *719policy of the State. The only law of this State purporting to restrict this power is that found in Code § 113-408, which provides that a subsequent marriage of the testator or the birth of a child to him when there is no provision in the will, made in contemplation “of such an event,” shall be a revocation of the will. It is quite important that a clear understanding of precisely what, under this last section, revokes the will. It is an event and not a person or some right of such person or persons. The mere fact of marriage or birth is sufficient to revoke it the moment such event occurs. The immediate death of the spouse or child after the event occurs would in no wise prevent revocation, although such death would destroy any possibility of inheritance by the spouse or child. These observations, it seems to me, make it plain beyond question that the Code sections referred to are confined solely to the question of the right of a person to make a will. They neither deal with nor have any relation to the law of inheritance as provided by the statute of distribution and the law of adoption.
The amendment of the adoption law (Ga. L. 1949, pp. 1157, 1158) does not even purport to amend or alter the foregoing law to make a will but expressly states that its purpose is to amend the 1941 adoption act (Ga. L. 1941, p. 305) and, by its terms, it deals solely with rights of the adopted child. Since it does not purport to amend Code §§ 113-106 and 113-408, the constitutional requirements as to express amendments found in Code (Ann.) § 2-1916, art. 3, sec. 7, par. 14, Constitution of Georgia; Ga. L. 1945, p. 24) have no application; but if it is to be given the effect attributed to it by the majority opinion, then it becomes an amendment of those Code sections by implication. Laws may be repealed by implication; and if the term, “birth of a child to him,” found in Code § 113-408, is to include the adopted child, as ruled by the majority, then that much of the Code section is, by this amendment, repealed and, in lieu thereof, are inserted, in substance, the words, “the birth of a child to him or the legal adoption of a child by him.” It is the established rule of construction that, before repeal by implication will occur, the later act must be repugnant to and irreconcilable with the former law. If the two will bear a construction that avoids repugnancy, then the former law is not *720changed by the later act. State Board of Education v. Richmond County Board of Education, 190 Ga. 588 (10 S. E. 2d, 369); Thornton v. McElroy, 193 Ga. 859 (20 S. E. 2d, 254); Thomas v. Board of Commissioners of Chattooga County, 196 Ga. 10 (25 S. E. 2d, 647); Connor v. O’Brien, 198 Ga. 221 (31 S. E. 2d, 399). To me it is perfectly clear that the two laws deal with entirely different subject matters, are readily reconcilable with each other, and neither is affected by the other. Therefore the older law should stand as it existed before the 1949 act, unaffected and unchanged by that act. Had the General Assembly desired to accomplish the result which flows from the majority opinion, they could have done so and, under established rules of construction, must have done so by the enactment of a law dealing with the subject of the right to make a will, and simply provided that the subsequent coming into existence of a person who, under the laws of distribution and inheritance would be an heir, would revoke the previous will.
I would quite readily agree that it would be right and just to provide by law that the adoption of a child would have the same effect as marriage or the birth of a child, but that should be done by plain law enacted by the sole law-making body of the State. The virtue or desirability of such a law is no justification for -obtaining it by tortured construction contrary to established rules to guide construction. The majority opinion will become the law of the land, and this opinion will neither affect the rights of these parties nor change the law as fixed by the majority, but it does give recognition to rules of construction upon which we must depend in the future. For the foregoing reasons I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.