Court Opinion

ID: 9720139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:17:38.69539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:13.533592
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority opinion overrules In re Estate of Miller, 128 Iowa 612, 105 N.W. 105, to hold there was no ademption and thus favor specific devisees over residuary beneficiaries in the distribution of certain assets.
The facts are simple. The testatrix provided that certain real estate should be sold by her executor and the proceeds distributed to the specific devisees. Later she sold that real estate under contract, upon which there was due at the time of her death approximately $37,000.00. The fight is over who shall have this sum. If there was an ademption, it goes to the residuary beneficiaries; if not, to the specific devi-sees.
The trial court held there was an ademption; the majority reverses. I believe the trial court was right and would affirm.
An ademption occurs when property which is the subject of specific bequest in a will is disposed of by the testator after the execution of the will so that at his death the property is not part of the estate.
I take the majority opinion to concede the contract sale here would work an ademption except for the provision of the will which, instead of leaving the property to the devisees outright, directs the executor to sell the real estate and distribute the proceeds to those designated by the testatrix.
The sole question for determination is whether this prevents ademption and entitles the specific devisees to the proceeds of the contract.
We have made an exception in the case of an involuntary sale where property is sold by court order in guardianship proceedings because this reflects no intention on the part of the incompetent testator to have the property adeemed. See In re Estate of Bierstedt, 254 Iowa 772, 119 N.W. 2d 234. However, we have not heretofore held the present circumstances to come within that rule.
The problem involves the difficult determination of the testator’s intent at the time of the execution of the will. We have said this is to be gathered from the four corners of the will. But we must also consider how his later conduct manifests a change of testamentary intent. The problem therefore is two-fold: what was the intent at the time the will was made, and does the later sale show a change of that intent ?
In this case, five years after the execution of the will the testatrix sold the real estate which she had set aside for specific persons. The majority says this worked an equitable conversion, but since that is what would have happened anyway at her death, the sale merely accelerated the time when the equitable conversion was accomplished thereby substituting the proceeds from the sale for the real estate as the subject of the specific bequest.
This is completely at odds with In re Estate of Miller, supra, and the majority correctly concludes that the Miller case must be overruled in order to justify the conclusion it reaches here.
I believe the majority unnecessarily upsets established principles without any substantial hope of accomplishing better results than those which obtained during the 65 years since the Miller opinion.
Obviously the testatrix’s intention at the time she made the will was that she would continue to own the real estate until her death. She provided it should then be sold and the proceeds distributed. Later, for reasons of her own, she sold that property under contract and received the proceeds as installment payments were made. As to those payments received by her during her *153lifetime, ademption is allowed. As to the amount remaining due on the contract at her death, it is denied. Because she died before payments were completed, the majority says she intended that any remaining balance unpaid on the contract would inure to the benefit of the specific devisees. If, on the other hand, she had died after the maturity of the contract, they would be entitled to nothing. This seems to me to be an entirely illogical extension of the ademption rationale.
How could the accidental date of her death conceivably affect testatrix’ intention with regard to the specific bequest? Under the majority’s theory if the testatrix had lived until 1972, when the contract matured, there would be an ademption because the total contract payments would have then been made to testatrix. But because she died in 1968, the majority finds she intended any balance remaining unpaid on the installment contract should belong to devisees under the specific bequest heretofore described.
As the majority correctly says, a will speaks only from the date of death. Until then it is ambulatory. At the date of death here the provisions which testatrix had made for appellants could not be carried out because the property from which they were to receive the proceeds was not a part of the estate. To say that the testatrix merely performed in advance those duties which the executor would otherwise have been required to discharge at her death, and that the result is exactly the same, seems to me to avoid the whole theory of ademption.
The majority opinion raises a number of interesting possibilities. I realize courts frequently remind themselves to decide only the case at hand and not engage in “what if” speculation. However, I cannot avoid that temptation here. What if, for instance, instead of selling this real estate on contract, the testatrix had traded it for another piece of real estate. At her death would the substitute real estate go to the specific devisees or would the gift be adeemed? Or, what if she had first traded the real estate described in the will for other real estate and then sold the new property on contract with an unpaid balance outstanding at the time of her death. Could those funds' be used to satisfy the specific bequest or would they be part of the residuary estate? Or, what if, instead of selling on contract, testatrix had conveyed her real estate and taken back a note and mortgage for the unpaid balance, part of which remained due at her death. Would the devisees then be entitled to claim the amount remaining unpaid under the note and mortgage?
Admittedly any rule which attempts to determine the intent of one now deceased is at best imperfect. That is true of the one by which we have lived in the past; it is equally true of the one the majority today adopts.
If we were starting anew here, perhaps the majority opinion would represent the best choice. But we already have a rule which has been long relied on by lawyers and their clients. Arguably the instances of injustice under it are no greater than under the proposed new one. It would merely result in different cases.
I am not persuaded that we should overrule the Miller case. I would affirm the trial court.
MOORE, C. J., and LARSON and REES, JJ., join in this dissent.