Court Opinion

ID: 9628430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:20:17.644651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:03.142345
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
dissenting:
In my opinion, this court should affirm the judgment of the trial court. I dissent for two reasons: first, because I can find no valid contract within the 1975 will which renders the otherwise revocable will irrevocable, and second, because by the very terms of the will the property was transferred to the survivor in fee simple absolute, thereby giving the unconditional title to the survivor, who may dispose of the property without restriction.
To make the will irrevocable there must be a contract between the testators making it so. There is certainly no contract here. All the parties did was to “declare that it [was their] intention” that the will should remain in effect until such time as the survivor’s estate was administered. This declaration of intention, however clear and unambiguous it might be, does not rise to the dignity of being a contract between the parties. The mere expression of intention or wish that a certain consequence come about does not *39destroy the essentially ambulatory character of a testamentary document. As this court has previously stated:
Essential to every will is its revocable quality. Implicit in every testamentary expression is a reservation of right to change as circumstances involving status or responsibility may alter or as aifection may from time to time direct. That the common testamentary wish of two people is jointly expressed does not in reason or common sense destroy its ambulatory character in this regard.
First National Bank of Nevada v. Friednash, 72 Nev. 237, 242, 302 P.2d 281, 283 (1966) (emphasis added). As I understand Friednash, it stands for the proposition that, without a valid, binding contract to the contrary, a will must be treated as freely revocable. Because I find no language in the will or elsewhere which expresses the Chiesas’s promise to be forever bound by the provisions of the 1975 will, I consider the will to be revocable.
Secondly, the survivor’s eventual taking of the property, as stated in the will, “absolutely and in fee simple, meaning hereby that the Survivor of us shall be the absolute owner of all Estate that each or both of us possesses,” is completely inconsistent with there being any restriction on the survivor’s use or disposition of the property. Because “an absolute grant is inimical to the divestiture of testamentary power [of the grantee],” Matter of Zeh, 24 A.D.2d 983, 265 N.Y.S.2d 257, aff’d, 18 N.Y.2d 900, 276 N.Y.S.2d 635, 223 N.E.2d 43 (1966), the language in the will is contradictory to appellants’ assertion, and the majority’s holding, that the will binds the survivor to dispose of his or her estate in fee simple in a particular manner.