Court Opinion

ID: 9858754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:36:54.664259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:46.469579
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The contractual will made the basis of this suit, when reduced to its simplest terms, shows that the testators agreed that upon the death of the first to die all community and separate property owned by the deceased was to pass to the survivor, and upon the death of the survivor “the property” was to pass to Bernice Mills and James A. Turriff, Jr. The question is: What property did the parties intend to bequeath when they referred to it as “the” property? The word “the” is a word of limitation. It is a definitive word and when used before nouns it has a specifying and particularizing effect as opposed to the indefinite or general effect. It determines what particular thing is meant; that is, what particular thing we are to assume to be meant. 41A Words and Phrases, p. 76 et seq. (citing cases). Webster says the article “the” is “used as a function word to indicate that a following noun * * * refers to * * * something previously mentioned or clearly understood from the context or the situation.” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. In the instant case the parties agreed that upon the death of the survivor “the” property would pass to Bernice Mills and James A. Turriff, Jr. At the time the testators bequeathed “the” property, the only specific property existing at that time was the property they had theretofore bequeathed to each other in a previous paragraph of the will. Certainly, the parties could not have intended to bequeath after acquired property because, at that time, no such property existed. Therefore, it seems obvious that when the parties bequeathed “the property” they must have intended to limit the bequest to the specific property they had theretofore bequeathed to each other. The will does not say that “all property” owned by the survivor was to pass to the devisees nor does the language used by the testators refer to property in general terms. On the contrary the testators limited the bequest to “the” property which could only mean they had in mind *696certain specific property. In this connection it is significant to note that while the parties provided all property, community as well as separate, was given to the survivor, they did not provide that separate property acquired by the survivor was to pass to the named devisees. Consequently, I cannot agree with the conclusion reached by the majority holding that by the use of the term “the property” the testators intended that the bequeathed property together with all property which might thereafter be acquired by the survivor was to pass to the named devisees.
In any event, the language used by the testators fails to satisfy the requirement laid down by Murphy v. Slaton, supra, requiring that in order for after acquired property of the survivor to pass under the will, the intention to do so must be set forth in the will in very plain, specific and unambiguous language. In the absence of such clearly expressed intention, I feel the better reasoning supports the rule that after acquired property owned by the survivor in his or her own individual right does not pass.
Accordingly, I would reverse and render judgment in favor of the appellant.