WILLS-DEPENDENT RELATIVE REVOCATION WHEN REVOCATORY CODICIL CONTAINS INEFFECTIVE SUBSTITUTED BEQUEST

Authors

F. William Hutchinson S.Ed., University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Testator's will, executed in 1926, provided a trust fund for his adopted daughter, then a minor, and named his wife as residuary legatee. By the terms of the will the daughter was to receive the trust income after she became twenty-one and the principal when she reached the age of thirty-five. In 1942, when the daughter was thirty-one, married, and the mother of two children, the testator added a codicil which included the following provision: "I hereby revoke the Trust Fund in favor of my Daughter Mildred, and substitute a lump sum of ___ dollars in cash." The testator died in 1946 without having completed the blank space in the codicil. The probate court held that the revocation was ineffective. On appeal by the widow, held, affirmed. Since the dispositive part of the codicil failed because of an intrinsic defect of the instrument, the doctrine of dependent relative revocation applies. In Re Braun's Estate, (Pa. 1948) 56 A. (2d) 201.

Recommended Citation

F. W. Hutchinson S.Ed., WILLS-DEPENDENT RELATIVE REVOCATION WHEN REVOCATORY CODICIL CONTAINS INEFFECTIVE SUBSTITUTED BEQUEST, 46 Mich. L. Rev. 1135 (1948).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol46/iss8/25