In re Tyler's Estate

• Decision Date: 29 October 1926
• Docket Number: 19488.
• Citation: 140 Wash. 679,250 P. 456
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: In re TYLER'S ESTATE. v. TYLER. SPANGLER et al.

250 P. 456

140 Wash. 679

In re TYLER'S ESTATE.

SPANGLER et al. v. TYLER.

No. 19488.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

October 29, 1926

Appeal from Superior Court, Snohomish County; Bell, Judge.

In the matter of the estate of Anna L. Tyler, deceased. From an order setting off to Percy B. Tyler, as surviving husband property from her separate estate, Ida Spangler administratrix of the estate of Anna L. Tyler, deceased, and others, appeal. Reversed, with instructions.

Parker Mitchell, Askren, and Main, JJ., dissenting.

C. T. Roscoe, Charles R. Denney, and John C. Richards, all of Everett, for appellants.

Charles A. Turner and Louis A. Merrick, both of Everett, for respondent.

HOLCOMB J.

From an order in probate proceedings setting over to respondent $3,000 worth of property out of the separate estate of his deceased wife under the provisions of section 1473, Rem. Comp. Stats., as amended by section 2, c. 142, of the Laws of 1923, entered in the court below, this appeal is taken.

On November 10, 1924, respondent murdered his wife. On January 5, 1925, Ida S. Spangler was appointed administratrix of the estate of Anna L. Tyler, deceased. Prior to the filing of the petition by respondent to have the property set over to him in lieu of homestead, he had been tried, convicted, sentenced, and committed to life imprisonment. An affirmative answer to the petition was filed by appellants alleging the above facts and that respondent killed his wife for the purpose of securing the property. A demurrer to the affirmative answer was sustained.

The question to decide is whether an uxoricide killing his wife for the purpose of getting possession of her separate property is entitled to the benefit of the above-cited statute. In that statute it is provided:

'If it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court that no homestead has been claimed in the manner provided by law, either prior or subsequent to the death of the person whose estate is being administered, then the court,' upon such notice as may be determined by the court, 'upon being satisfied that the funeral expenses, expenses of last sickness and of administration have been paid or provided for, and upon petition for that purpose, shall award and set off to the surviving spouse, if any, property of the estate, either community or separate, not exceeding the value of three thousand dollars ($3,000). * * * The order or judgment of the court making the award or awards provided for in this section shall be conclusive and final, except on appeal and except for fraud. The awards in this section provided shall be in lieu of all homestead provisions of the law and of exemptions.'

By the express terms of this statute the apparent duty of the court is to award and set off to the surviving spouse the amount of property therein mentioned in lieu of homestead provisions of the law and all exemptions. The only exception provided for in the statute is that of fraud. But the apparent duty above stated must be construed in connection with other statutory provisions and principles in such a case as this. His honor, the trial judge, rendered a very able judicial opinion upon this question, which, indeed, constitutes a brochure upon the subject. Nor is he to be critized for accepting the one statute at its face value and feeling fettered thereby, for it is a fact that the majority of about 14 jurisdictions which have considered this and analogous questions sustain him.

It is so offensive to good conscience, repugnant to justice, and revolting to the mind of every right-thinking person that one should come into court with bloody hands and receive as it were a reward for his iniquity that we cannot conceive that the Legislature composed of persons of good sense and integrity should ever have intended, in enacting the statute and its amendment, that such consummation could be accomplished. It must be true that such a state of facts as appear in this case was not in the mind of the Legislature at the time the statutes were passed.

It is argued on behalf of respondent, in effect, with which the trial court agreed, that the courts must give effect to the language of the statute was written, it being plain and unambiguous; that to construe this statute so that it would provide that one as in the present case should not benefit by his own crime would be to judicially interpret into the statute a provision not there found. It is also declared that it cannot be said that the Legislature did not have in mind the making of exceptions, because it provided against fraud.

We are compelled to admit that a majority of the courts which have passed upon similar questions have held that the court has no power to write into an unambiguous law an exception which would prevent one from benefiting by his criminal act, when the Legislature has not so provided. Some of the cases which have been examined have dealt with statutes upon insurance policies where the beneficiary by homicide killed the insured so as to more speedily come into the money. Others have been upon statutes of inheritance or descent, where one has killed a person whose property had been willed to, or would descend to him, in order more speedily to come into the estate.

In an early case in Nebraska, Shellenberger v. Ransom, 31 Neb. 61, 47 N.W. 700, 10 L. R. A. 810, 28 Am. St. Rep. 500, the Supreme Court first held that the husband who had murdered his wife for the purpose of acquiring her property was not entitled to inherit under the statute of that state, which did not make any such exception. Upon rehearing in that case, reported in 41 Neb. 631, 59 N.W. 935, 25 L. R. A. 564, in an opinion written by a commissioner, the former decision was overruled, and the opposite view taken.

In McAllister v. Fair, 72 Kan. 533, 84 P. 112, 3 L. R. A. (N. S.) 726, 115 Am. St. Rep 233, 7 Ann. Cas. 973, a very prominent case, it was held that a husband who had feloniously killed his intestate wife for the purpose of acquiring her property was not prevented, under the statute of that state which made no such exception, from taking such inheritance.

In Owens v. Owens, 100 N.C. 240, 6 S.E. 794, a widow, who was convicted as an accessory before the fact of her husband's murder, was held to be entitled to dower in his lands under the statute of that state, which contained no exception.

In Holloway v. McCormick et al., 41 Okl. 1, 136 P. 1111, 50 L. R. A. (N. S.) 536, it was held that a husband who had murdered his wife had a right to inherit from her under the statute of that state, because no exception was made thereto by reason of the criminal act.

In Re Carpenter's Estate, 170 Pa. 203, 32 A. 637, 29 L. R. A. 145, 50 Am. St. Rep. 765, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a son who murdered his father in order that he might more speedily obtain his inheritance out of his father's estate was allowed to inherit, notwithstanding his felonious act. See, also, Deem v. Millikin, 3 O. C. D. 491, affirmed by memorandum opinion of the Supreme Court, 53 Ohio St. 668, 44 N.E. 1134.

Most of these cases cite other cases that are thought to sustain the decision therein in principle or by analogy, but we do not care to set out either the reasoning of the courts in the above cases, or the authorities.

It seems to us that there was in all of those cases a too literal, submissive, and complacent acceptance of the bare language of the one statute, rather than fundamental principles of the common law and other written law.

In this state there is also a general statute (section 143, Rem. Comp. Stats.) which is pertinent. It provides:

'The common law, so far as it is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, or of the state of Washington, nor incompatible with the institutions and condition of society in this state, shall be the rule of decision in all the courts of this state.'

We have held that any law in derogation of the common law should be strictly construed. Hays v. Miller, 1 Wash. T. 143; State ex rel. Hopman v. Superior Court, 88 Wash. 612, 153 P. 315; Dernac v. Pacific Coast Coal Co., 110 Wash. 138, 188 P. 15.

Section 1473, supra, on which respondent relies, is manifestly in derogation of the common law, for at common law the estate of the deceased would have passed to her heirs upon her death, and not have been awarded to respondent in lieu of homestead.

While it is true that this statute nowhere specifically provides that the rule or doctrine of the common law should apply which precludes a murderer from inheriting from his victim, it is inconceivable that the Legislature would intentionally enact a law whereby the murderer should so take.

The New York Court of Appeals decided in Riggs v. Palmer, 115 N.Y. 506, 22 N.E. 188, 5 L. R. A. 340, 12 Am. St. Rep. 819, that a murderer cannot take there, as legatee or heir, the estate of one whom he has murdered for the purpose of obtaining the property. It was well observed:

'Besides, all laws, as well as all contracts, may be controlled in their operation and effect by general, fundamental maxims of the common law. No one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime. These maxims are dictated by public policy, have their foundation in universal law administered in all civilized countries, and have nowhere been superseded by statutes. * * * These maxims, without any statute giving them force or operation, frequently control the effect and nullify the language of wills. * * * Here there was no certainty that this murderer would survive the testator, or that the testator would not change his will, and there was no certainty that he

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