Hama v. RiverSource Life Insurance

*431OPINION OF THE COURT

Kristin Booth Glen, S.

The narrow issue before the court is whether Yuko Machida abandoned her husband, Shoichiro Hama, and therefore has forfeited the rights with respect to his estate that would otherwise accrue to her as his surviving spouse (EPTL 5-1.2 [a] [5]). There is also a larger issue, perhaps better directed to the legislature: whether the strict definition of abandonment in the old fault-based Domestic Relations Law is appropriately imported into the EPTL for purposes of determining intestate succession or the right of spousal election.1 The unusual facts of…