Estate of Jean Acord, Deceased, Sterling Ernest Norris, Personal Representative v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

We are in an unusual position for a federal appeals court. We must decide an issue of first impression under Arizona probate law. We are called upon to interpret Arizona’s statutory provision that a devisee who does not survive a testator by more than 120 hours is deemed to have predeceased the testator unless the will includes “some language dealing explicitly with simultaneous deaths or deaths in a common disaster, or requiring that the devisee survive the testator or survive the testator for a stated period in order to take under the will.” A.R.S. § 14-2601(A).

Claud…