{ "id": 1688470, "name": "Robinson v. Shivley, Admr", "name_abbreviation": "Robinson v. Shivley", "decision_date": "1961-11-27", "docket_number": "5-2527", "first_page": "222", "last_page": "225", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "234 Ark. 222" }, { "type": "parallel", "cite": "351 S.W.2d 449" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "316 Mo. 1310", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Mo.", "case_ids": [ 8736120 ], "weight": 2, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/mo/316/1310-01" ] }, { "cite": "82 S. W. 101", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.W.", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "184 Mo. 99", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Mo.", "case_ids": [ 1364469 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/mo/184/0099-01" ] }, { "cite": "87 Mo. 437", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Mo.", "case_ids": [ 436377 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/mo/87/0437-01" ] }, { "cite": "18 A. L. R. 2d 755", "category": "reporters:specialty", "reporter": "A.L.R. 2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "216 Ark. 684", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 1614244 ], "weight": 2, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/216/0684-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 390, "char_count": 6440, "ocr_confidence": 0.524, "pagerank": { "raw": 4.03580807328026e-08, "percentile": 0.06376568672536508 }, "sha256": "c1876c3d94ac5985a9fa6b8ae5634e2c43ab93922d223ed3c5ddb8fab3b5754f", "simhash": "1:0165cec34cffd9eb", "word_count": 1103 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T15:15:30.076044+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Robinson v. Shivley, Admr." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "George Rose Smith, J.\nThis is an application by the appellant, as the widow of Thomas J. Robinson, for an award of statutory allowances from her husband\u2019s estate. Ark. Stats. 1947, \u00a7 62-2501. The administrator contested the petition on the ground that Mrs. Robinson had joined with her prospective husband in an antenuptial contract by which she relinquished all claims to \u201cdower, homestead, widow\u2019s award, or other right\u201d in her husband\u2019s estate. The probate judge held the contract to be valid and accordingly denied the widow\u2019s application for statutory allowances.\nThe controlling question is whether the antenuptial contract was valid under the law of Missouri, where Robinson was living before the marriage and where the contract was executed in 1957. The agreement recites that it is to be governed by Missouri law, and in any event that law would be controlling, since the contract was signed in that state. Simpson v. Weatherman, 216 Ark. 684, 227 S. W. 2d 148, 18 A. L. R. 2d 755.\nThe parties were in their late fifties when they were married in August of 1957. On the morning of their wedding day they executed the antenuptial agreement, in the office of Robinson\u2019s Missouri attorney. In substance the agreement provided (a) that Robinson would provide reasonable support for his wife while the two were living together as husband and wife, and (b) that each spouse relinquished any claim whatever to an interest in the other\u2019s estate. The appellant received no transfer of any property under the contract.\nIt cannot be doubted that the appellant\u2019s attempt to release her rights as Robinson\u2019s widow would have been void under the law of Missouri as it existed before the enactment of a new probate code in 1955. From 1825 until 1955 Missouri had a statute that read in part as follows: \u201cIf any woman prior to and in contemplation of marriage shall, in agreement or marriage contract with her intended husband, or other person, receive any estate, either real or personal, to take effect after the death of her husband, by way of jointure, as a provision for her support during life, and expressed to be in full discharge of all her claim of dower, such estate shall be valid, and a bar to dower in the estate of her husband.\u201d Mo. Rev. Stats. Anno. (1939), \u00a7 334.\nThis statute was construed by the Missouri courts to mean that a woman\u2019s antenuptial release of dower in her prospective husband\u2019s estate was valid only if she received under the agreement a conveyance of property as a provision for her support during life. As the court said in the leading case of Mowser v. Mowser, 87 Mo. 437: \u201cEven if a parol agreement can be allowed to defeat dower, the widow must receive under it, real or personal property as a provision for her support during life; it is against public policy to allow a man, by an agreement before marriage, which does not secure to the wife a provision for her support during life after his death, to bar her right to dower. The statutes sanction no such agreement.\u201d Later cases include King v. King, 184 Mo. 99, 82 S. W. 101, and Reger v. Reger, 316 Mo. 1310, 293 S. W. 414.\nDespite these cases the appellee insists' that the ancient Missouri rule was abrogated by the 1955 probate code, which revised the former statute to read as follows: \u201cIf any person prior to and in contemplation of marriage in agreement or marriage contract with his intended spouse, or other person, receives any estate either real or personal to take effect after the death of his spouse, or any other time, as a provision for his support during life, and expressed to be in full discharge of all his rights of inheritance or any other statutory rights in the estate of his spouse, such estate shall be valid, and a bar to his rights of inheritance and other statutory rights in the estate of his spouse.\u201d Mo. Rev. Stats. (1959), \u00a7 474.120.\nWe are not convinced that the legislature intended the suggested change in the law. The appellee relies largely upon a treatise by Almon H. Maus on Missouri Probate Law and Practice, published in 1960. In \u00a7 1241 of that work the author discusses the possibility that the settled Missouri rule may have been changed by the probate code. To support this view it is pointed out that the Missouri statute now applies to both spouses instead of to the woman alone. It is also pointed out that under the probate code a woman may, before or after marriage, waive her right to take against her husband\u2019s will if she receives for the waiver \u201ca fair consideration under all the circumstances.\u201d Mo. Rev. Stats. (1959), \u00a7 474.220.\nNeither of the two provisions mentioned lends persuasive support to the appellee\u2019s argument. The probate code abolished dower and curtesy, \u00a7 474.110, and provided instead that a surviving husband or wife should have identical statutory interests in the other\u2019s estate. \u00a7 474.010. The law governing antenuptial contracts was apparently amended to conform to this policy of treating the two spouses exactly alike. And, in permitting a woman to waive her right to take against her husband\u2019s will, the legislature was careful to insert a requirement that she receive a fair consideration for the waiver. This is essentially similar to the protection long afforded her by the antenuptial contract statute.\nThe Missouri probate code of 1955 was a comprehensive statute that necessarily required careful draftsmanship. It must he assumed, and really cannot he doubted, that the framers of the code were familiar with the settled judicial construction of the statute controlling antenuptial agreements. That law was rewritten to make it harmonize with other provisions in the code, but there is no sound basis- for saying that the legislature meant to change what had been the state\u2019s declared policy for a hundred and thirty years. The vital clause in the older law was that the woman receive \u201ca provision for her support during life.\u201d This clause was carried forward almost verbatim in the section as rewritten in 1955. When we consider how simple it would have been for the lawmakers to have expressly made a change in the law if that had been their desire we are not convinced that they intended to achieve the same result by indirection.\nReversed.", "type": "majority", "author": "George Rose Smith, J." } ], "attorneys": [ "Bon McCourtney & Associates, by Claude B. Brinton, for appellant.", "Harry L. Ponder, Patrick O. Freeman, Jr., Thayer, Mo., for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Robinson v. Shivley, Admr.\n5-2527\n351 S. W. 2d 449\nOpinion delivered November 27, 1961.\nBon McCourtney & Associates, by Claude B. Brinton, for appellant.\nHarry L. Ponder, Patrick O. Freeman, Jr., Thayer, Mo., for appellee." }, "file_name": "0222-01", "first_page_order": 244, "last_page_order": 247 }