Court Opinion

ID: 9646654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:06:04.397223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:40.336392
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Culver,
Dissenting.
*399I agree with the disposition made of this case by the Court of Civil Appeals (281 S.W. 2d 237) and for the reasons therein assigned.
The testatrix in the fifth clause of her will, expressed three conditions and in the event of the happening of any one her property would pass to the respondents. The testimony showed that both women were fatally injured as a result of the automobile collision and the mother never regaining consciousness, died one hour and eleven minutes after the testatrix. The only question we have then is: Did the two women die simultaneously, or in short how should the word “simultaneously” be defined?
Surely the testatrix in writing her will must have had in mind the probability of the very thing that happened, because only as a result of some similar occurrence could it be within the realm of the possible that the death of mother and daughter would occur so close together in point of time that neither would have had the opportunity to have made any changes they might desire in the disposition of their property after the death of the other. It was the very event of death in a common disaster that the testatrix sought to make provision for.
Of course the definition of the word usually given is that of two events occurring at the same time. To say, however, that death can occur to two people as the result of an automobile collision at exactly the same instant of time is literally an impossibility. Two automobiles may be simultaneously approaching a given point because each at a given instant are engaged in a continuing act, but it could hardly be said that both could arrive simultaneously at the given point at exactly the same instant of time.
Therefore, if we define the word “simultaneously” as used by the testatrix as meaning at exactly the same instant of time, then it has no meaning because it states an impossible condition and we, therefore, must construe the fifth clause as setting forth only two conditions instead of three.
I think the word should have some elasticity in order to carry out the intention of the testatrix and thus we should accord to it the meaning of approximately at the same time.
I recognize the fact that to give the word “simultaneously” a spread of an hour would draw the argument that this would *400render the meaning indefinite and that the line of distinction must be drawn somewhere. Yet wills have been drawn where the provision is if the persons “died simultaneously or approximately so.” The word “approximately” is certainly indefinite and yet the courts have had no difficulty in construing the meaning of that condition. Zierau v. Zierau, 347 Ill. 82, 179 N.E. 432; Am. Trust & Safety Deposit Co. v. Eckhardt, 331 Ill. 261, 162 N.E. 843. I think the word should be defined so that we would not hold that the testatrix provided expressly for an occurrence which could not possibly happen.
I would affirm the judgments of the trial court and the Court of Civil Appeals.
Opinion delivered January 25, 1956.
Rehearing overruled March 7, 1956.