Originally published by David Fowler Johnson.
In Sullivan v. Hatchett, a husband executed a will giving his wife a life estate in his property. No. 07-17-00296-CV, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 980 (Tex. App.—Amarillo February 11, 2019, no pet. history). The will then provided:
THIRD: In the event [Juanita] should predecease me, or if we should die in or as a result of the same accident or disaster, or if she should not survive until ninety (90) days after my death . . . I hereby give, devise, grant and bequeath outright and in fee simple, fifty per cent (50%) of my said estate unto my Daughter, SHERRY LAYNE GIBSON HATCHETT . . . ten per cent (10%) of my said estate unto THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 2201 Broadway, Lubbock, Texas . . . .
FOURTH: All of the rest and residue of my said estate . . . I do hereby give, devise and bequeath in trust, twenty per cent (20%) of said rest and residue unto each of the two named beneficiaries, unto SHERRY LAYNE GIBSON HATCHETT as Trustee, for the use and benefit of two (2) of our three (3) grandchildren if they are still attending a college or university full time . . . such grandchildren being CHRISTINA MICHELLE HATCHETT and LISA MARIE HATCHETT . . .
Id. After the wife passed, her nephew, who was her executor, entered into a farm and ranch contract regarding a ranch former owned by the husband and wife as community property. Before closing, Sherry Gibson asserted she owned fifty percent of the husband’s estate under the third paragraph of his will, thereby creating a cloud on the title to the property. The mother’s executor then filed a declaratory judgment action to establish the interests of the parties in the property, and Sherry counter-claimed. The trial court ruled for Sherry, and the mother’s executor appealed.
The court of appeals reversed and ruled for the mother’s executor. The court first discussed the rules of will construction:
When interpreting a will, the primary focus of the court is the determination of the testator’s intent, as reflected in the will as a whole, and the effectuation of that intent as far as is legally possible. The intent must be drawn from the will, not the will from the intent. Ascertaining intent from the four corners of a will requires careful examination of the words the testator chose and the sense in which the words were used by the testator is the ultimate criterion. Words and phrases must be construed together and in context, not in isolation. A court should focus on the meaning of the words actually used by the testator and not on what he intended to write.
Id. (internal citations omitted).
The mother’s executor alleged that he was entitled to summary judgment because the second paragraph of the father’s will created a life estate only and the remaining paragraphs of the will did not establish a remainder interest or dispose of one hundred percent of the residual estate. The court of appeals agreed:
The third paragraph of Charles’s will, the survivor paragraph, provided three contingencies to effectuate a survival clause, none of which occurred… Thus, without any of the contingencies having occurred, the third paragraph became moot—thereby effectively distributing nothing to the named contingent beneficiaries, i.e., Sherry and the First Baptist Church. As such, it does not function to establish either a remainder interest or dispose of any residual interest. Because the third paragraph does not bear on the disposition of any residual interest, it does not pass title to the beneficiaries named in the trial court’s judgment. While the fourth paragraph, the residuary paragraph, does dispose of forty percent of any residual estate (twenty percent to Christina and twenty percent to Lisa), it makes no provision for the remaining sixty percent, thereby creating a partial intestacy.
Id. The court acknowledged that there is a general reluctance to find partial intestacy, but the plain words of the will control. The court held that half of the property belonged to the wife’s estate because it was her community property, forty percent of the husband’s half community interest passed via the fourth paragraph to Christina and Lisa and the remaining sixty percent of the husband’s half passed by the rules of intestate succession.
There was a dissenting justice who would have affirmed the trial court’s judgment:
There is nothing inconsistent between the Third paragraph’s provisions naming Sherry and the church as recipients of the sixty percent under the stated contingencies and the Second paragraph’s identification of them as remaindermen after the life estate given Juanita. The two paragraphs do not provide conflicting dispositions; they provide alternative dispositions. If any of the eventualities described in the Third paragraph occurred, no life estate would be created in Juanita. Read together, the Second and Third paragraphs thus consistently provide for Sherry and the church to receive the disputed sixty percent after Charles and Juanita both were deceased, regardless of the order or timing of their deaths, subject only to Juanita’s life estate.
Id.
Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.
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