Court Opinion

ID: 9769915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:07:55.329663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:09.209281
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Garwood,
concurring.
My reason for this opinion is that the rule of decision below suggested was the basis of an opinion originally submitted by me in this case and rejected by the majority of the court, In such instances a separate statement of one’s views is doubtless appropriate judicial procedure, though resulting in the same conclusion accepted by the majority that the will here required Mrs. Miller to elect between the benefits given her by the will and her right to enjoy the benefits of the homestead and other exemption laws. The majority accepts also, of course, the conclusion that Mrs. Miller has not yet made the election with which she is confronted.
The majority view is that: (a) for there to be a case for election in a situation like the present, the testator’s intent to negative his wife’s enjoyment of the statutory exemption rights must be so clear that the will admits of no other construction, just as in situations in which there is question of the husband’s intent to dispose of his wife’s half of the community, and (b) whenever a will disposes of the testator’s separate property or his half of the community or both in the brief and general fashion exemplified here, such as, “I give all my property to my wife and children in equal shares”, it is susceptible to no other construction than that the survivor is intended not to enjoy the statutory exemption rights. We have never before held either proposition (a) or (b) and I think we should not do so now.
*552As to proposition (a) — that we should in effect assume an intent of the testator that his surviving spouse is to take both under the will and by the exemption statutes — common experience certainly does not suggest such an assumption, and there is little basis'for the supposed analogy between it and the presumption that a testator intends to dispose only of his own property. Obviously, in common experience, people do not usually intend to will property that belongs to others — even the half of the community estate belonging to their surviving spouses. If they do so intend, we naturally expect them to say so in such unmistakable terms that no other construction of the will is possible. Avery v. Johnson, 108 Texas 294, 192 S. W. 542. On the other hand, in a case like the present, in which the property in question undoubtedly belonged to the testator and is willed by him to his wife and others, is it common experience that he intends for the wife also to take what the exemption statutes afford? The latter case is clearly not one of whether a testator means to dispose of another’s property, but of what he means when h-1 disposes of his own property. True, whether he intends to n'^i i'~-2 the survivor’s exemption rights is in a vague sense a question of disposing of another’s property, but obviously these rights are far from being property of the survivor in the usual sense. The beneficiary of them could not herself pass them by will or assignment. We have said in Dakan v. Dakan, 125 Texas 305, 83 S. W. 2d 620, that the homestead right is not an “estate”. It may be destroyed by mere abandonment. Is it not common experience when a testator leaves part of his property to his surpiving spouse, he more often than not believes that he is arranging the full and only benefit she is to enjoy from his property and has no idea of her getting further benefits from that same property by way of the exemption laws ? Is it not also common experience that the testator’s actual provision for the surviving spouse in the will is usually of value at least equal to what the survivor would get under the exemption laws? So the natural presumption in such a case is just the contrary of that prevailing when there is question of the testator’s intent to dispose of his wife’s community half or of her separate estate. We naturally assume that the testator did mean to “dispose of” the survivor’s exemption rights in the sense of negativing their application. If this is so, how can we indulge the same presumption in both cases? Surely it is no sound reason to do so simply in order to reduce the number of different rules of construction. I greatly doubt if we will “confuse the bar” by refusing to apply here a presumption that does not fit and applying a contrary one that does fit. The presumption which I think should apply here — that the testator intended to *553“dispose of” or negative benefits under the exemption law — is somewhat analogous to the presumption that where there is a will, the testator did not intend for any part of his estate to pass by intestacy. See 44 Tex. Jur. 707 in the latter connection.
The presumption argued for is naturally not a conclusive one. It is simply a legitimate aid in ascertaining the testator’s intent and may be rebutted by circumstances in the will which render a contrary intent more probable in point of fact.
Nor does proposition (b) of the majority view appear convincing in its assertion that the will here is subject to no other construction than that the testator intended to negative the widow’s exemption rights. Certainly such a conclusion is far less clear in the instant case than it was in Lindsley v. Lindsley, 139 Texas 512, 163 S. W. 2d 633, which involved an elaborate will with bequests of specific property for particular purposes which were almost certainly inconsistent with the widow’s enjoyment of rights in such property under the exemption laws. In the instant case the widow could have continued to enjoy possession of the homestead regardless of the fee simple ownership of it'by herself and the testator’s children. Such a situation is far from uncommon. As to the exempt personalty, the same is true. Her allowance would indeed entail giving her full ownership of some of the property or its sale proceeds, in which the will considered alone gives the children an undivided interest, but is the testator’s intent here, without aid of a presumption, so clear that no other construction is even possible? I agree that the more probable construction is to negative the exemption rights, but if we say that the latter must be the only possible construction in order to pose an election, then I greatly doubt if an election is presented. It seems to me that we come nearer the truth when we say that on the basis of general experience, we presume this will intends to negative the exemption rights unless we can find something in it which affirmatively renders a contrary intent more probable, and that, this latter element being absent, the presumption prevails.
Doubtless there is no vast difference in practical effect between the above views and the majority opinion. The presumption for which I contend would probably result in forcing an election in most cases in which the will gives a benefit to the surviving spouse. The construction which the majority gives the instant will should have the same effect, and may well operate to force an election in most every case in which the will does *554not expressly deal with the matter of exemption rights. But I believe my own analysis of the problem the more correct and have therefore recorded it.
Opinion delivered January 3, 1951.
Rehearing overruled February 7, 1951.