Court Opinion

ID: 9677269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:47:59.840864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:54.901985
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
{dissenting). There is no question about the right of the deceased to revoke her will, any part of it, or any bequest contained in it, if she decided so to do.
The situation now under consideration is so circumstanced as to clearly show that when Alice J. Holcombe knew that her cousin, Nellie Curtis, had died, she revoked the bequest under which Nellie Curtis was to share in the residue and remainder of her estate. This revocation was made because she did not care to have that portion of her estate descend in that particular channel.
She believed the revocation was effective, as she intended it to be, for she declared the instrument as it then existed expressed her will. She told Mrs. Kossel, the wife of the executor of the will, that her will was in the trunk. It was found there, and it is not disputed that Alice Holcombe struck out the name of Nellie Curtis as a beneficiary, and that, as a reason for so doing, she also wrote the word “dead.”
The revocation was complete. It was not dependent on how the surplus or residue thus created was to be disposed of. She struck out that portion of the will by revocation which provided for an inheritance for Nellie Curtis.
I am of the opinion that the trial court correctly held that the marks striking out the name of Nellie Curtis indicate that *652the testatrix intended to strike out that provision of her will which made provision for Nellie Curtis. We may well observe, as was suggested in Will of Byrne, 223 Wis. 503, 271 N. W. 48, a great deal of speculative comment may be developed by ingenious minds, but the fact remains that the testatrix intended to do something to her will, and that was to revoke the bequest to Nellie Curtis, because Nellie Curtis had died. We are not concerned with the failure to draw a new will. That failure does not affect or overcome the effective cancellation of the devise to Nellie Curtis.
The judgment of the circuit court which affirmed the judgment of the county court should be affirmed.