Court Opinion

ID: 9710782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:17:40.155207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:59.945957
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell:
I vigorously dissent.
Violet Dowler and her husband purchased a home and took title as tenants by the entireties. Upon her death all her title to and her rights in the property immediately and absolutely ceased; while his title, under a myriad of cases, attached at and continued from the time he and his wife acquired title as tenants by the entireties, and he is considered in law as the sole owner of this home from the time he and his wife purchased the property: Zipperlein Estate, 367 Pa. 622, 80 A. 2d 817; Gallagher Estate, 352 Pa. 476, 43 A. 2d 132; 41 C.J.S., p. 471; Porobenski v. American Alliance Insurance Co., 317 Pa. 410, 411, 176 A. 205.
In Zipperlein Estate, supra, the Court in its opinion said (page 624) : “It is well established that where an estate is held by the entireties the husband and the wife do not each own a one-half share or any divisible part of the property, but both own the whole of it; each is seized per tout et non per my: Madden v. Gosztonyi Savings & Trust Co., 331 Pa. 476, 200 A. 624; *526C.I.T. Corporation v. Flint, 333 Pa. 350, 5 A. 2d 126; Gallagher Estate, 352 Pa. 476, 43 A. 2d 132; Use of United States National Bank v. Penrod, 354 Pa. 170, 47 A. 2d 249.”
In 41 C.J.S., page 471, the law is thus stated: “The effect of the death of one spouse is merely to free the estate from participation by that spouse. The survivor takes by virtue of the original grant or devise;* he does not take a new or additional interest by virtue of survivorship, nor does he take by descent or intestate succession, or as devisee”. As (the present Chief) Justice Drew, said in Porobenski v. American Alliance Insurance Co., 317 Pa. 410, 411,176 A. 205: . . . “the right of the survivor to the whole is considered as arising not from a new estate but from a continuation of the old: Stuckey v. Keefe’s Ex’rs, 26 Pa. 397; Beihl v. Martin, supra; Gasner v. Pierce, supra.”
It is clear from these authorities that in this case it is just as if the decedent and her husband jointly executed a mortgage and accompanying bond on his home; they also jointly signed a judgment note for a new roof on his home; and they also jointly signed a promissory note for storm windows on his home. This is not a claim by creditors who owned the aforesaid obligations ; nor is the question whether half of the bond and mortgage is a deductible debt in computing inheritance taxes (Kershaw Estate, 352 Pa. 205, 42 A. 2d 538). This, we repeat, is a claim by a husband for one-half of the mortgage which he and his wife placed on his property and for one-half of the cost of the roof placed on his property and for one-half of the cost of storm windows installed in his property. As between a husband and wife, why should she or her estate have to *527pay for one-half of her surviving husband’s property? Is it not logical and just that a joint obligation of a husband and wife arising directly out of entireties property should be considered as between husband and wife to be an entireties obligation?
The allowance of the husband’s claims (which incidentally deprive her children of any inheritance in their mother’s estate) is not only inequitable, it is both startling and shocking.
The orphans’ court is a court of equity and in the exercise of its limited jurisdiction it applies the rules and principles of equity: Orphans’ Court Act 1917, P. L. 363, §22 (b), 20 P. S. 2602; Douglas’s Estate, 303 Pa. 227, 232, 154 A. 376; McCullough’s Estate No. 2, 292 Pa. 422, 141 A. 239; Nimlet’s Estate, 299 Pa. 359, 149 A. 658; Constable’s Estate, 299 Pa. 509, 149 A. 743.
In allowing contribution without any decisional or statutory authority in Pennsylvania to support them, the majority overlooked the fact that the doctrine of contribution rests on principles of equity and natural justice and will not be applied where these are lacking or where, as here, inequity and injustice result: 18 C. J.S., §2, p. 3.
There is still another reason why these claims of the husband should not be allowed. It is horn book law that a husband is primarily and, as between themselves, absolutely liable (unless expressly released) for a wife’s necessaries: Cf. 41 C.J.S., §50, p. 508; Waesch’s Estate, 166 Pa. 204, 30 A. 1124; Conn’s Estate, 65 Pa. Superior Ct. 511; Mitchell’s Estate, 79 Pa. Superior Ct. 208; Melot’s Estate, 231 Pa. 520, 80 A. 1051; Hunter Pennsylvania Orphans’ Court, Vol. 1, pp. 601, 602. What becomes of this principle of a husband’s liability for necessaries, or isn’t a home, a roof, or a window “a necessary”?
*528Moreover, under the facts in this case, is not the wife, in effect, an accommodation maker (since all her interest in the property terminated at her death) and as such, not liable to her husband for whom she became an accommodation party: Cf. Act of May 16, 1901, P. L. 191, Ch. I, Art. II, §28, §29, 56 P. S. 65, 66; Peale v. Addicks, 174 Pa. 543, 548, 34 A. 201; Com. v. Willstein, 146 Pa. Superior Ct. 357, 22 A. 2d 613.
As between a husband and a wife, the surviving husband who owns a property held (until his wife’s death) by the entireties should, in my opinion, in equity as well as in law, take it cum onere — all the obligations with all the benefits.
Por these reasons I would dismiss the husband’s claims for contribution and affirm the decree of the court below.

 Italics throughout, ours.