## Facts

- Celestine L. Dupré executed a will (Mar. 26, 1951) giving one-half of the residuary estate to her nephew (identified as Nelson Lamoth) and one-half to Aurea Senecal.
- Dupré executed a codicil (Apr. 10, 1951) stating it revoked the will’s residuary clause and substituted a new residuary clause that kept the same 50/50 plan, but clarified the nephew’s identity as “Marcisse Lamoth ... also known as Nelson Lamoth.”
- One of three subscribing witnesses to the codicil was Senecal’s husband.
- Under a statute governing interested attesting witnesses, a bequest or devise to a subscribing witness, or to the spouse of a subscribing witness, is void unless the instrument is properly attested without that witness’s signature.
- The Probate Court admitted the will and codicil to probate, held the codicil’s gift to Senecal void under the statute, but treated Senecal’s gift under the will as valid.
- Fabiola LaCroix, Dupré’s niece and heir-at-law (and not a will beneficiary), sought a declaratory judgment that one-half of the residue passed by intestacy due to the codicil’s revocation and partial invalidity.

## Issues

1. Whether the codicil’s stated revocation of the will’s residuary clause caused intestacy as to Senecal’s half when the codicil’s bequest to Senecal was void under the witness statute.
2. Whether the doctrine of dependent relative revocation preserves the will’s original residuary gift to Senecal when the codicil repeats the same dispositive plan but fails of effect as to that gift.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed.
- The codicil’s residuary gift to Senecal was void under the witness statute.
- No intestacy resulted as to Senecal’s half of the residue because the identical residuary gift to Senecal in the original will remained effective.
- The codicil’s revocation of the will’s residuary clause was treated as dependent on the codicil’s legal effectiveness; the failure of the codicil as to Senecal’s gift left the will’s prior disposition in force.

## Legal Principles

- Under dependent relative revocation, if a testator revokes a prior testamentary provision with the present intent that a substitute disposition take effect, and the substitute fails, the law presumes the testator preferred the prior disposition to intestacy absent evidence rebutting that presumption.
- Dependent relative revocation applies to partial revocations as well as total revocations.
- When a later instrument repeats the same dispositive plan, the revocation of the earlier provision is treated as inseparably related to, and contingent on, the later instrument’s legal validity.
- A statutory rule voiding gifts to an attesting witness (or the witness’s spouse) may invalidate the gift in the later instrument without invalidating a properly executed earlier will containing the same gift.

## Conclusion

Because the codicil merely clarified the nephew’s name while repeating the same residuary plan, and because its bequest to Senecal failed under the witness statute, the court applied dependent relative revocation to avoid unintended intestacy and enforced Senecal’s one-half residuary gift under the original will.


LaCroix v. Senecal, 140 Conn. 311, 99 A.2d 115 (Conn. 1953)