Webster v. Scott

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant is the sister, executrix, and a legatee and devisee of a testatrix, who resided in Cecil County, Maryland. Appellee is the husband of the testatrix. The estate consisted of personal property appraised at a little over $1,000, real estate appraised at $500 and about $4,100 in cash in the bank, making a total of about $5,600.

By her will, the testatrix gave her property to various and sundry relatives, leaving the appellant the real estate, and leaving the appellee, her husband, a bequest of $400. The appellee, in due course and in proper form renounced the will and elected to take his legal share of the real and personal estate. When the estate was ready for distribution, the Orphans’ Court of Cecil County passed an order that the appellee was entitled to take the chattels, corporate stock, and real estate at the appraisal, and in addition thereto, sufficient cash to equal the sum of $2,000, and then was entitled to have one-half of the residue. Under Section 314 of Article 93 of Flack’s Code of Public General Laws, as amended by the Act of 1941, Chap. 142, a surviving husband, renouncing a will and electing to take his legal share of the real and personal estate of his wife, became entitled, if his wife was not survived by descendants, or a father, or a mother, but was survived by a sister (which is the case here), to “two thousand dollars or its equivalent in property, or any interest therein, at its appraised value, and one-half of the residue of the lands as an heir and one-half of the surplus personal estate remaining.” In the case ¹²¹ before us the testatrix had bequeathed to the appellant as trustee $1,000 and thirty shares of Pennsylvania Railroad stock for the benefit of Octavene Hicks until she arrived at the age of twenty-one years, at which time the trust was to cease, and the corpus was given absolutely to the appellant.

By another clause of her will, the testatrix gave her real estate to the appellant. The appellee claimed, and was awarded as part of his $2,000 allowance, the Pennsylvania Railroad stock appraised at $600 and the real estate appraised at $500. The rule in such case is that the testatrix is presumed to know that her husband may renounce the will, and if she makes no compensation for devises or legacies, which may be thereby extinguished, the devisees or legatees will lose the property left them. Darrington v. Rogers, 1 Gill 403 ; Devecmon v. Kuykendall, 89 Md. 25 , 42 A. 963 ; Johnson v. Stringer, 158 Md. 315 , 148 A. 447 ;