Court Opinion

ID: 9707014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:58:41.015108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:26.935576
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
Wiltrout, J.
— I am unable to agree with the majority that the will involved here contains a latent ambiguity.
The will before us is not ambiguous in respect to whether the Home for the Aged located at 2007 N. Capitol Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana, that is, the appellee The Altenheim of Indianapolis, is the legatee. Said appellee exactly fits the description in the will, and when applied to it none of the language is false, erroneous, or surplusage.
The will having declared the clear, paramount, and ruling intention of the testator that the home for the aged located at the address named in the will should take, the fact that the testator labored under a mistake, if indeed he did, as to the particular home involved, would not affect the construction of the will. Rodarmel v. Gwinnup (1931), 92 Ind. App. 684, 173 N. E. 327.
The Supreme Court in Peirce v. Farmers State Bank of Valparaiso (1944), 222 Ind. 116, 51 N. E. 2d 480, quoted with approval the following language from 4 Page on Wills (3rd Ed.), § 1627:
“Accordingly, where the language of a will has a definite meaning, as interpreted by the rules of *603construction, and applies without ambiguity, to the beneficiary and property in existence, extrinsic evidence is not admissible to attempt to show that it does not express the testator’s true intent.”
A court has no authority to make a will.' It may not admit extrinsic evidence to add to, vary, or eliminate the terms of a will as written. McConnell v. Robbins (1923), 193 Ind. 359, 140 N. E. 59; Rapp v. Reehling et al. (1890), 124 Ind. 36, 23 N. E. 777.
The intention of the testator to be ascertained is not that which existed in the mind of the testator, but the intention as embodied in and obtained from the language of the will itself. The real inquiry is not what the testator intended to express, but what the words do express. Thomas v. Thomas et al. (1886), 108 Ind. 576, 9 N. E. 457; Grise, Admr. v. Weiss, Admr. (1937), 213 Ind. 3, 11 N. E. 2d 146; Wolf v. Wolf (1920), 73 Ind. App. 221, 127 Ñ. E. 152; Rodarmel v. Gwinnup, supra; Martin v. Raff (1944), 114 Ind. App. 507, 52 N. E. 2d 839. As stated in McConnell v. Robbins, supra: “It is not, What did he mean? but, it is, What do his words mean?”
In Rodarmel v. Gwinnup, supra, this court quoted the following from I Page on Wills (2d Ed.), § 809, p.. 1370:
“The court can not begin by inferring testator’s intention, and then construe the will so as to give effect to this intention, however probable it may be nor can it rewrite the will, in whole or in part, to conform to such presumed intention.”
In the same opinion the court quoted from 2 Schouler, Wills (6th Ed.), p. 975, § 859:
“In other words, the plain and unambiguous words of the will must prevail and cannot be controlled or qualified by any conjectural or doubtful constructions growing out of the situation, circum*604stances or condition of the testator, his property or the natural objects of his bounty.”
The extraneous evidence upon which appellant relies is not calculated to supply deficiencies in an ambiguous will. Rather it is to change the legal effect of a will that is unambiguous. In the light of the rules of law and precedents by which we are bound, I think the judgment should be affirmed.
Note. — Reported in 93 N. E. 2d 203.