## Facts

- Ruby Seeman executed a will in 1987 distributing specified assets to her husband, brother, and three surviving children.
- The will contained no residuary clause and did not dispose of Seeman’s residence.
- The will expressly stated that no part of Seeman’s estate should go to her deceased son’s widow or to his children, Debra Cook and Keith Seeman.
- Seeman died in 1992, and the will was admitted to probate based on witness proof.
- The executrix sought probate court authority to sell the residence and asked the court to determine who should receive the sale proceeds.
- The probate court found the residence was not disposed of by the will, but concluded the exclusionary clause showed intent to bar the grandchildren from sharing and ordered the proceeds distributed only to the three surviving children.
- The excluded grandchildren appealed, arguing that intestacy law controlled property not devised by the will.

## Issues

1. Whether an exclusionary clause in a will, without a residuary clause, can determine the distribution of property the will fails to dispose of.
2. Whether a court may use an expressed intent to disinherit to reroute intestate property away from heirs who would otherwise take under intestacy statutes.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the probate court’s order.
- The court held that the exclusionary clause did not control the residence because the will did not dispose of it and contained no residuary clause.
- The residence (or its sale proceeds) was required to pass under Arkansas intestacy law.
- The court acknowledged Seeman’s apparent intent to exclude the grandchildren, but ruled that intent could not operate as a substitute for an actual testamentary disposition of the omitted property.

## Legal Principles

- A testator’s intent governs will interpretation, but it must be implemented through the will’s dispositive provisions as written.
- Courts may construe a residuary clause broadly to avoid intestacy, but they cannot create a residuary disposition where none exists.
- Property not effectively devised by a will passes by intestate succession under the applicable statute.
- An exclusionary (disinheritance) clause, standing alone, does not affirmatively dispose of property and therefore cannot direct the distribution of intestate property or alter the statutory order of heirs.

## Conclusion

Because the will omitted the residence and contained no residuary clause, the exclusionary language could not control the omitted asset, and the residence proceeds had to be distributed according to Arkansas intestacy statutes rather than solely to the decedent’s three surviving children.


Cook v. Estate of Seeman, 858 S.W.2d 114 (Ark. 1993)