Court Opinion

ID: 9770300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:58:01.117763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:16.336183
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge.
This appeal is by the heirs at law of Joseph B. Bloomer, deceased, from the judgment of the trial court that they were not entitled to the proceeds of his estate. The appeal was originally taken to the court of appeals, western district, which affirmed the judgment, but the case was transferred to this court upon application of appellants. We consider the case as though here on original appeal. Mo.Const. art. V, § 10. Portions of the court of appeals opinion will be incorporated in this opinion without the use of quotation marks.
This appeal involves the application to the facts of this case of the provisions of § 474.420, RSMo 19781 which are as follows:
“If after making a will the testator is divorced, all provisions in the will in favor of the testator’s spouse so divorced are thereby revoked but the effect of the revocation shall be the same as if the divorced spouse had died at the time of the divorce. With this exception, no written will, nor any part thereof, can be revoked by any change in the circumstances or condition of the testator.”
The facts are stipulated. The essential facts are these: On September 8, 1952, while a resident of Collinsville, Illinois, Joseph B. Bloomer made and executed his last will and testament in which he devised and bequeathed to “Mrs. Ruth Hays, Yarrow, Adair County, Missouri”, all of his property. On April 19, 1954 he married Ruth Hays (now Ruth Hays Capps). On September 22, 1954, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer entered into a property settlement and on November 12, 1954, they were divorced. Thereafter she remarried and became Mrs. Capps.
Mr. Bloomer died on October 27, 1969. His estate has been the subject of legal dispute since 1970. See Matter of Estate of Bloomer, 528 S.W.2d 784 (Mo.App.1975). According to the revised final statement in the estate, filed October 19, 1978, there remains $15,693.01 for distribution. This appeal arises from the trial court’s order overruling appellants’ objections to the revised final settlement and the proposed order of distribution which recognizes respondent as the sole beneficiary.
The question presented in this case is a narrow one. Joseph Bloomer made respondent, Ruth Hays Capps, a beneficiary in his will prior to their marriage. They were then married and divorced. Does § 474.420 serve to revoke the provisions in the will in her favor? We conclude yes. We do so by application of the straightforward words of the statute. The legislature decided that a divorce should wipe the slate clean as to the divorced spouse, without the testator having to go to the time and expense of making a new will. We can be sure that in almost every instance a divorced person does not desire a bequest to the former spouse to remain in effect. The legislature realized this, too, and wrote the statute to accomplish what was perceived to be the desired outcome in most divorces.
*367Section 474.420 provides that “If after making a will the testator is divorced, all provisions in the will in favor of the testator’s spouse so divorced are thereby revoked”, the effect to be “the same as if the divorced spouse had died at the time of the divorce.” Such language is plain and unambiguous. By its terms it revokes provisions in a will executed prior to a divorce, as to the divorced spouse. It is not limited to provisions in wills made after marriage. All provisions in favor of the divorced spouse are revoked. The statute does not say “all provisions of any will made subsequent to the marriage and in favor of the spouse so divorced are thereby revoked.” After the part quoted above, the statute goes on to provide “the effect of the revocation shall be the same as if the divorced spouse had died at the time of the divorce.” The divorce activates a “constructive death” of the testator’s spouse vis-a-vis the will. The anti-lapse statute, § 474.460, does not prevent the lapse of the devise to respondent because the statute applies only when a child, grandchild or other relative of the testator, to whom any estate is devised, predeceases the testator. A wife is not considered a relative within the statute. McComb v. Lyons, 487 S.W.2d 16, 18 (Mo.1972); Gregory v. Borders, 345 Mo. 699,136 S.W.2d 306, 308 (1940). The effect, then, is that upon divorce, the testator’s spouse “dies” and the provisions in her favor are revoked. Such an effect takes place without regard to whether the spouse is one who was in the will before she married the testator or not until after she married the testator. In either case, her “death” would make all provisions in her favor void. McComb v. Lyons, supra at 18.
“If the language used is plain and unambiguous, there is no reason for any construction .... ” United Air Lines, Inc. v. State Tax Commission, 377 S.W.2d 444, 448 (Mo. banc 1964). See also St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. v. Crunk, 594 S.W.2d 625, 628 (Mo. banc 1980). “When the language of a statute is unambiguous and conveys a plain and definite meaning, the courts have no business to look for or to impose another meaning.... If a statute is unambiguous, a court should regard it as meaning what it says since the legislature is presumed to have intended exactly what it states directly.” State ex rel. Collins v. Donelson, 557 S.W.2d 707, 710 (Mo.App. 1977); Pedroli v. Missouri Pacific Railroad, 524 S.W.2d 882, 884 (Mo.App.1975).
Although the court of appeals opinion relied on Women’s Christian Association v. Brown, 354 Mo. 700, 190 S.W.2d 900, 904[5] (1945) for the proposition that statutes, such as § 474.420, which are in derogation of the common law, should be construed liberally, see also § 1.010, this court in Steggall v. Morris, 363 Mo. 1224, 258 S.W.2d 577, 582 (banc 1953), stated, “[W]hether remedial or in derogation of the common law, we have no right to change the meaning of a plain and unambiguous statute.” The latter situation is applicable here.
Applying the above principles, we find that the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous and, therefore, requires no construction, liberal or otherwise. The statute provides that if after making a will the testator is divorced (that happened here — after Mr. Bloomer made the will on September 8, 1952, he was divorced on November 12, 1954), “all provisions in the will in favor of the testator’s spouse are thereby revoked.” The “testator’s spouse so divorced” was Mrs. Bloomer (now Mrs. Capps). The fact that she was not his spouse when the will was made does not alter the fact that the provisions in the will under which she seeks to take were provisions in her favor and she was “the testator’s spouse so divorced”, the divorced spouse who was considered to have “died at the time of the divorce.” By virtue of the statute, all provisions in Joseph Bloomer’s will in favor of respondent were revoked by operation of law, § 474.420.
Chief Justice Donnelly’s dissent cites the catchy language in Charlton v. Miller, 27 Ohio St. 298, 22 Am.Rep. 307 (1875) that “If, then, her right to the legacy does not depend upon the marriage, it can not be lost by the divorce, for she can lose no more by the divorce than she gained by the marriage”; or to phrase it another way, she has *368to gain something by the marriage before she can lose it by divorce. This is flawed reasoning. It overlooks the fact that a will is ambulatory and revocable until the death of the maker. Marriage does not in itself constitute or amount to a legacy. An effective legacy depends upon there in fact being a legacy in a will and the legacy not having been revoked prior to the death of the testator. So the fact that Mrs. Capps did not gain her legacy by virtue of being married to Mr. Bloomer does not mean she cannot lose the legacy by being divorced. She can always lose the legacy by its being revoked, divorce or no divorce. That is what happened here by virtue of the statute.
We reverse and remand for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
RENDLEN, MORGAN and BARDGETT, JJ., concur.
DONNELLY, C. J., dissents in separate dissenting opinion filed.
WELLIVER and HIGGINS, JJ., dissent and concur in separate dissenting opinion of DONNELLY, C. J.

. Unless otherwise indicated, all statutory citations are to RSMo 1978. Section 474.420 was first enacted in its present form in 1955 (Laws of Mo.1955, p. 385, § 271) and has remained unchanged.