Succession of Berdon

12 So. 2d 654, 202 La. 607, 1943 La. LEXIS 916
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedFebruary 1, 1943
DocketNo. 36643.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 12 So. 2d 654 (Succession of Berdon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Succession of Berdon, 12 So. 2d 654, 202 La. 607, 1943 La. LEXIS 916 (La. 1943).

Opinion

HIGGINS, Justice.

The decedent died on May 14, 1941, leaving a widow but no forced heirs. He left a -will in olographic form dated October 18, 1939, in which he made a number of particular bequests and instituted his wife, his sister, and the surviving children of a deceased brother, as residuary legatees, in the proportion of an undivided one-third each. All of the particular legacies were given free of all the estate and inheritance taxes, th'e executors being directed to pay these taxes. On April 2, 1941, he executed a codicil, in olographic form, to his will, revoking the legacies in favor of the surviving children of his deceased niece, May Beth Fore Hermann, namely, Claire Elizabeth, Mary Louise, and Joan Leone Hermann, of $10,000 each of the preferred capital stock of Berdon Campbell Furniture Company, and fifty shares each of the capital stock of the Whitney National Bank, and stating “ * * * and in lieu of this bequest I now will and bequeath jointly to said three surviving children of my deceased niece above named, Five hundred (500) shares of the capital stock of the Whitney National Bank, * * * ” in trust with the bank, to be held until each beneficiary reaches the age of twenty-five years, and he ordered that the net revenue from this stock be paid to them quarterly.

On the dates that the decedent executed his will-and codicil and at the time of his *612 death he owned only 775 shares of stock in the Whitney National Bank. In the will he bequeathed 850 shares of Whitney National Bank stock and in the will and the codicil thereto he disposed of 1,200 shares of stock in the Whitney National Bank, whereas at no time did he own more than 775 shares thereof.

The attorney for the Hermann minors contends, as there are insufficient shares of bank stock to be delivered to all of the legatees, the testator has ordered two things, which are contradictory, to be done and, therefore, the last bequest prevails over the first, because it is presumed that the testator persevered in his intentions expressed in the codicil and, hence, there is a tacit revocation.

The attorneys for Mrs. Hortense Berdon, the deceased’s widow, to whom he bequeathed, under the provisions of his will, his home on West Beach Boulevard, together with the furniture and fixtures therein, the usufruct of his home on Napoleon Avenue, and certain particular legacies, including 500 shares of Whitney National Bank stock, contend that as all of the particular legacies of the respective legatees of shares of stock of the Whitney National Bank are valid (because they have neither been expressly nor tacitly revoked, except as to the 50 shares each to the Hermann minors), and it was the intention of the testator that all of the legacies be carried out, therefore, the executors should be instructed to purchase sufficient additional shares of stock of the Whitney National Bank to fulfill all of the legacies. In the alternative, they contend that, if the shares of stock are not available for purchase, the legatees be paid proportionately the difference in cash, the value to be fixed as to the date of the de cujus death. Further, in the alternative, they state that the legacies should be proportionately reduced, there being insufficient stock to pay all of them in full.

The attorneys for the executors point out that the United States has demanded additional estate taxes approximating $141,-000; and that after paying the debts, charges, and legacies of specific things, there will be a net estate of about $160,000, so that, if the claim of the United States government is allowed in full, there will not be sufficient funds with which to purchase the 425 shares of stock at $75 or more per share. They commented upon the issues raised and submitted the matter to the court.

The trial judge held that the bequests in the will and the codicil thereto of more of a particular kind of shares of stock than the testator owned causes a contradiction and, therefore, what the testator ordered to be done in the codicil prevails over what he ordered to be done in his will, citing Article 1723 of the Revised Civil Code. He further decreed that the 425 shares of bank stock that the estate was lacking be taken from the particular bequest of 500 shares in favor of the widow, on the theory that that was the first particular bequest of stock and each oi the later particular legacies prevailed o /er it. The result was that there was sufficient stock to carry out all of the particular legacies for Whitney National Bank stock, except the widow’s legacy of *614 500 shares, the trial judge only awarding her 75 shares.

The widow appealed and the Hermann children have answered the appeal, asking that their stock be delivered in trust at once, in order that they might obtain the revenues therefrom quarterly, as provided in the codicil.

We shall discuss the issues in the above order.

We quote the pertinent Articles of the Revised Civil Code, as follows:

“1691. The revocation of testaments by the act of the testator is express or tacit, general or particular.
“It is express when the testator has formally declared in writing that he revokes his testament, or that he revokes such a legacy or a particular disposition.
“It is tacit when it results from some other disposition of the testator, or from some act which supposes a change of will.
“It is general when all the dispositions of a testament are revoked.
“It is particular when it falls on some of the dispositions only, without touching the rest.”
“1692. The act by which a testamentary disposition is revoked, must be made in one of the forms prescribed for testaments, and clothed with the same formalities.
“1693. Posterior testaments, which do not, in an express manner, revoke the prior ones, annul in the latter only such of the dispositions there contained as are incompatible with the new ones, or contrary to them, or entirely different.”
“1695. A donation inter vivos, or a sale made by the testator of the whole or a part of the thing bequeathed as a legacy, amounts to a revocation of the testamentary disposition, for all that has been sold or given, even though the sale or donation be null, and the thing have returned into the possession of the testator, whether by the effects of that nullity, or by any other means.”
“1696. The sale, made by the testator, of an object bequeathed, even by act under private signature, after the date of the testament, produces a 'revocation of the legacy, if the act be entirely written, signed and dated with his hand.”
“1700. The legacy falls, if the thing bequeathed has totally perished during the lifetime of the testator.”
“1723. When a person has ordered two things, which are contradictory, that which is last written is presumed to be the will of the testator, in which he has persevered, and a derogation to what has before been written to the contrary.”

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Bluebook (online)
12 So. 2d 654, 202 La. 607, 1943 La. LEXIS 916, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/succession-of-berdon-la-1943.