Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Gittings

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion'of the Court. This is an appeal from an order of the Orphans’ Court of Howard County passed on the 6th day of March, 1906, and involves a construction of ch. 331 of the Acts of 1898. On the 19th day of November, 1903, Henry Winter filed a petition in the Orphans’ Court of Howard County, as surviving husband of his wife, Annie M. Winter, deceased, claiming one-third part of the personal estate in the hands of the appellee, her executor, for distribution. Mr. Winter died on the fourth day of January, 1905, and the appellants, his executors,-by a subsequent petition filed on the 7th day of February, 1906, claimed therein, one-third of an additional sum of $29,995, collected by the executor since the filing of the original petition.

The facts of the case are substantially as follows: Mr. and Mrs. Winter were married in the month of October, 1869. She died on the 10th of November, 1902, leaving a last will and testament, which was admitted to probate in the Orphans’ ⁴⁹⁵ Court of Baltimore City, and letters testamentary were granted to the executor named'in the will. She left surviving her, a husband, Henry Winter, a son, John S. Gittings, the executor named in the will, and the appellee here, and a granddaughter, Eleanor A. Moale. By her will she disposed of a large estate, but made no devise or bequest of either real or personal estate to her husband, ‘ Henry Winter.

The personal estate, in the hands of the executor, consists of the following item: Property and cash shown in inventory returned nth of April, 1902............................................................$52,446 86 Additional inventory returned on 18th March, 1905.............. 7,000 00 Cash collected from decree of the Circuit Court for Howard County and interest thereon............................................ 29,995 66 Total...............................................................$89,442 12 It is contended, upon the part of the appellants, that under ch. 331 of the Acts of 1898, the surviving husband, by virtue of his survivorship, is entitled to one-third of his wife’s personal estate, notwithstanding the provisions of her will, to the contrary. On the part of the appellee, it is claimed, that chapters 331 and 457 of the Acts of 1898 are prospective and not retroactive in their operation, and have no application to this case. By sec. 7, ch. 457, of the Acts of 1898,-it is provided, that every husband shall acquire by virtue of his marriage an estate for his life, in one-third of the land held or owned by his wife, at any time during the marriage, whether by legal or equitable title or whether held by her at the time of her death or not * * * nor shall any conveyance of such lands by the wife alone bar such estate of the husband therein. This statute was before us in Harris v. Whitely, 98 Md. 443 , in relation to certain real estate, owned by the wife before the passage of the Act, and we there said that the language of the Act would not under the prevailing rules of construction, be held to manifest an intention, on the part of the Legislature to give its provisions such retroactive operation as to disturb or impair existing property rights. ⁴⁹⁶ And so in Slingluff v. Hubner, 101 Md. 652 , where the marriage of the party had taken place and the property sought to be affected by dower right in the wife, had been acquired, and become vested in the husband who was then living prior to the Act of 1898, it was held that the right of the parties were not affected by the Act of 1898, ch. 457, but must be determined according to the pre-existing law.

We come, then, to the Act of 1898, ch. 331, passed at