Irving Trust Co v. Day

• Decision Date: 05 January 1942
• Docket Number: No. 51,51
• Citation: 137 A.L.R. 1093,62 S.Ct. 398,86 L.Ed. 452,314 U.S. 556
• Parties: IRVING TRUST CO. et al. v. DAY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

314 U.S. 556

62 S.Ct. 398

86 L.Ed. 452

IRVING TRUST CO. et al.

v DAY.

No. 51.

Argued and Submitted Dec. 11, 1941.

Decided Jan. 5, 1942.

Mr. Philip Zierler, of Brooklyn, N.Y., for appellants.

Mr. Andrew F. Van Thun, Jr., of Brooklyn, N.Y., for appellee.

Mr. Ralph L. Kaskell, Jr., of Jamaica, L.I., N.Y., for appellants Edward and Robert McGlone, infants, by their guardian.

Mr. Justice JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The federal question presented upon this appeal is whether § 18 of the New York Decedent Estate Law, Consol.Law, c. 13 works an impairment of the obligation of contract, forbidden by Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution, or a deprivation of property without due process, forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The instrument which appellees claim embodies a contract which has been impaired, and under which they claim property rights, reads as follows:

'I, Helena Day Snyder, being of sound mind and in possession of all my faculties, on the eve of my marriage to John J. McGlone, in London, England, on February 4th, 1922, wish to record, of my free will, that, as I already possess, in my own right, ample of this world's goods in the way of a fortune of my own, as a compliment to my aforesaid husband, and for other good and sufficient reasons, I hereby, voluntarily and irrevocably renounce all right, title and interest I might, legally or otherwise, have in any estate, real or personal, of which my said husband to be, John J. McGlone, might due seized.'

Appellee's decedent, Helena Day Snyder, who died in the course of this litigation, executed this instrument in London two days before her marriage to John J. McGlone, appellant's decedent. The laws of New York at the time gave to a widow dower rights in her husband's real estate, but, except for restrictions on charitable gifts not involved here, left him otherwise free to make testamentary disposition of all his property to strangers.

On August 21, 1930, McGlone executed a will, one clause of which recited Helena's waiver but 'nevertheless' made a bequest of $2,000 to her as a 'slight token' of his affection and admiration. The legislation complained of, giving a testator's surviving spouse a right of election to take against the will, had been enacted as § 18 of the Decedent Estate Law on March 29, 1929, but it did not become effective until September 1, 1930, a few days after McGlone executed his will.¹ It premitted waiver by a spouse or prospective spouse of the protection thus afforded, but in order to be effective the waiver was required to be 'by an instrument subscribed and duly acknowledged.'² The instrument signed by Helena was not acknowledged, and the new legislation was limited in operation to wills executed after its effective date.

McGlone so acted as to bring his estate under this new legislation. On July 6, 1934, he executed a codicil to his will which, although it did not disturb the provision made for his wife in his earlier will, had the effect of bringing the entire will, modified and republished, within the provisions of the new law³ and thus, according to the terms of § 18, of giving her a right of election to take under the statute and against the will.

Helena sought to exercise this right, and thus precipitated the present litigation, in which the quoted instrument was pleaded as a bar to the right. The Surrogate held that the instrument was not a contract, In re McGlone's Will, 171 Misc. 612, 13 N.Y.S.2d 76; the Appellate Division held that it was, In re McGlone's Will, 258 App.Div. 596, 17 N.Y.S.2d 316; and the New York Court of Appeals assumed, without deciding, that apart from the effect of § 18 of the Decedent Estate Law, it was a binding contract, validly executed, and entitled to the protection of the Constitutional provisions here invoked. The Court of Appeals held, however, that 'A wife cannot by agreement make the husband's right created by law immune from the right of the State to change the law which created the right nor waive in advance a right created for her benefit if the law does not permit such a waiver.' Section 18 was held to confer a right of election upon Helena, and to be consistent with the requirements of the contract and due process clauses of the Federal Constitution. Matter of McGlone's Will, 284 N.Y. 527, 533, 32 N.E.2d 539, 542.

The reluctance of the New York Court of Appeals to decide the question whether the instrument in question did constitute a contract is quite understandable upon consideration of the record made up in this case. It appears from the face of the instrument that it was penned on stationery of the Savoy Hotel, London, by an unidentified scribe, and that the only signature was Helena's. The instrument does not recite mutuality of agreement. It recites no consideration, and none is proved. It rather negatives the receipt of consideration and the likelihood that marriage was such by indicating that the parties had already exchanged promises to marry. Nor is there anything in text or context to help identify the source of the rights said to be waived. No circumstances are adduced to show that either of the parties, about to marry in a foreign land, then had New York as a domicile or was contracting with reference to its laws, either present or future. The marriage record in evidence shows that his 'residence at the time of marriage' was 'Savoy Hotel, London' and hers was 'The Beverleys, Thornbury Road, Isleworth.' If either was domiciled elsewhere, there is nothing to indicate it. There is not even any showing that at the time either of the parties owned or had any expectation of owning property in New York. No apparent heed has been given to the usual rule that the law of the place of contracting determines questions of form, capacity to contract, necessity of consideration, and some aspects of the duty of performance. Both sides seem to have assumed, but for reasons that are not revealed, that the law of New York governs these questions. The niggardliness of the record may by due in some part to the restriction imposed on the right of a survivor to testify by § 347 of the New York Civil Practice Act, but this does not warrant an illinformed guess by this Court as to the existence of a contract or its meaning under properly applicable rules of law.

When this Court is asked to invalidate a state statute upon the ground that it impairs the obligation of a contract, the existence of the contract and the nature and extent of its obligation become federal questions for the purposes of determining whether they are within the scope and meaning of the Federal Constitution, and for such purposes finality cannot be accorded to the views of a state court. Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U.S. 488 502, 18 S.Ct....