In re the Estate of Goutmanovitch

105 Misc. 2d 851, 432 N.Y.S.2d 768, 1980 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2628
CourtNew York Surrogate's Court
DecidedSeptember 25, 1980
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 105 Misc. 2d 851 (In re the Estate of Goutmanovitch) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Surrogate's Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re the Estate of Goutmanovitch, 105 Misc. 2d 851, 432 N.Y.S.2d 768, 1980 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2628 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1980).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Millard L. Midonick, J.

These cross motions for summary judgment in a pending executors’ accounting raise significant issues with respect to the operation and effect of an outright pecuniary marital deduction formula legacy. The decedent executed his will in 1976 and died in the same year. The two primary beneficiaries under the will are decedent’s wife and his sister. The wife receives legacies of cash and tangibles and an outright marital deduction formula legacy in a form sometimes characterized as hybrid. The residuary estate goes to the sister. The wife filed a notice of election. In summary form, the issues are (1) whether the marital deduction formula’s reduction of the widow’s legacy by the value of the property passing to her outside of the will gives her a right to one half of the estate’s income and appreciation because it gives her a limited right of election. The limited right of election asserted arises from the exempt property which passes to the wife under EPTL 5-3.1 which the literal language of the formula appears to offset against her legacy, thereby giving her less than her elective share; and (2) whether the widow is entitled to appreciation on the marital deduction legacy.

1. THE WIDOW’S CLAIM TO INCOME AND APPRECIATION ON ONE HALF OF THE NET ESTATE BY VIRTUE OF HER RIGHT OF ELECTION:

The decedent bequeathed to his wife all of his tangible personalty including household furnishings (art third), the sum of $10,000 (art sixth) and “an amount equal to one-half (y2) of the value of my adjusted gross estate as finally determined in the Federal estate tax proceeding in my estate, reduced, however, by the aggregate value of all other interests in property, if any, which pass or have passed to my said wife under other provisions of this Will, any Codicil hereto, or from me otherwise than under this Will or any Codicil hereto, but only to the extent that such [855]*855other interests are allowed as a marital deduction in the Federal estate tax proceeding in my estate, such values of my adjusted gross estate and of such other interests in property being those finally determined for Federal estate tax purposes.” (Art eighth; emphasis added.)

In this estate the exempt property passing to the widow under EPTL 5-3.1 consists of $1,000 in cash and household furnishings valued at $5,000. These pass to the widow under the statute rather than by virtue of the bequests of cash and tangibles to her. The statute is clear that these assets are not a part of the estate for fiduciary accounting purposes and the executors concede that they must be deducted and set off to the widow before determining whether the testamentary dispositions satisfy the widow’s right of election under EPTL 5-1.1. The widow’s elective share here is one half. (EPTL 5-1.1, subd [c], par [1], cl [B].) There are apparently no nontestamentary transfers includible in this estate for Federal estate tax purposes so that the gross taxable estate for estate tax and the gross estate for fiduciary accounting purposes coincide, with the exception of the widow’s exempt property (EPTL 5-3.1), which is part of the taxable estate only.

The briefs of both parties read the underscored direction reducing the amount of the formula legacy by assets passing to the widow “from me otherwise than under this Will” as applicable to the widow’s exempt property under EPTL 5-3.1. Both conclude that this reduction of the marital formula legacy gives rise to a limited right of election (EPTL 5-1.1, subd [c], par [1], cl [H]). The executor allots to the widow one half of the adjusted gross taxable estate plus an amount which his most recent memorandum estimates to be $5,000 as her limited right of election. His computation of the adjusted gross estate presumably included the exempt property which should be excluded in computing the net estate on which the elective share is based (EPTL 5-1.1, subd [c], par [1], cl [B]). The correct starting point, the value of the estate for fiduciary accounting purposes, is a figure which excludes the $6,000 of exempt property. The executor’s approach would give the widow the benefit of a larger estate on which to compute her fraction. (Matter of Taliento, 9 Misc 2d 167; Matter of Miles, [856]*856131 NYS2d 328; Matter of Lorch, 33 NYS2d 157.) In addition to this claim of a limited right of election arising out of the exempt property the widow claims that she is entitled to her one-half elective share of the estate’s income and appreciation. The executors argue that she is entitled only to the income and gain attributable to the amount of her limited right of election.

At the threshold, the court rejects the parties’ assumption that the widow has even a limited right of election. The Court of Appeals has held (Matter of Tisnower, 40 Misc 2d 778, affd 23 AD2d 535, revd 16 NY2d 906) that a bequest to a widow which otherwise satisfied her statutory elective share did not give rise to a right of election in the amount of the exempt property where the will expressly provided: “ ‘The foregoing provisions for the benefit of my said wife are, and are intended to be, in lieu of all claims which my said wife may have as surviving spouse, whether in the exercise of a right of election, exemption or otherwise’ ”. (40 Misc 2d 778, 779, supra; emphasis added.) In Tisnower, the court reversed the decisions of Surrogate Di Falco and the Appellate Division without opinion on the authority of Matter of Galewitz (3 Misc 2d 197, affd without opn 3 AD2d 736, affd 5 NY2d 725). The Galewitz will did not expressly condition the wife’s bequests on the surrender of the right to exempt property although it provided that they were: “ ‘in lieu of dower or of any other interest in my estate or in any property owned by me or in which I have an interest at the time of my death, and in bar of her right of election’ ”. (3 Misc 2d 197, 200, supra.)

The Surrogate interpreted the legacy as not conditioned on foregoing the exempt property and held that such property passed independently of the will. Even were we to construe the marital legacy at hand as so conditioned, Tisnower (supra) would render such a condition inoperative, apparently on the ground that exempt property passes to the widow outside the will whose terms should be read without reference to such property. Moreover, the language in the instant will is closer to the Galewitz provisions since the exempt property is not expressly offset. (See Matter of Berger, 22 Misc 2d 860.) As the court said in Galewitz (3 Misc 2d 197, 201, supra), “[t]he will is a carefully planned in[857]*857strument completely free of self-defeating errors so gross as that which the widow insists it contains.”

In Matter of Hartzberg (21 Misc 2d 1059), Surrogate Di Falco did sustain a limited right of election (arising from a direction to offset the widow’s legacy by property passing to her outside the will) based upon the exempt property (together with Totten trusts passing to the widow, at a time before the addition of testamentary substitutes to the right of election). That decision, however, antedates Tisnower (supra).

This court holds that the widow’s exempt property does not offset her marital deduction legacy of one half of the adjusted gross estate. As a result, the widow reaps the benefit of this exempt property twice since it does form a part of the adjusted gross estate on which her legacy is computed.

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Bluebook (online)
105 Misc. 2d 851, 432 N.Y.S.2d 768, 1980 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2628, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-estate-of-goutmanovitch-nysurct-1980.