Garett v. Rawlings

On December IS, 1955, Doris Naomi Rawlings made a will. It contained a be■quest to an individual and left the residue to her children. The will expressly directed payment of her funeral expenses.1 Later she married the appellant Jules Garett, and was married to him when she died. The will had remained unchanged.

In this case the trial court allowed the estate to recover from the husband $486 which it had paid out for funeral expenses, and the husband appealed.

The determinative question here is whether the common law rule, that as between a surviving husband and his wife’s estate the former is…