Arizona Court of Appeals Division One Holds That Arizona’s “Revocation By Divorce” Statute, A.R.S. § 14-2804, Does Not Apply To An Irrevocable Trust Created For A Spouse, Notwithstanding The Fact That The Marriage Was Void Due To The Spouse’s Concurrent Marriage To Another Woman.

The siblings of the decedent, Kathryn Pabst Rodriguez, sought to preclude her husband, Mauro Rodriguez, from receiving an irrevocable trust created by her will. At the time of the Pabst-Rodriguez marriage, Rodriguez was married to another woman. By the time of appeal, the parties did not dispute that this fact voided the marriage. The probate court acknowledged that A.R.S. § 14-2804 applied only to a decedent’s “revocable” dispositions of property but nevertheless held that Rodriguez was not entitled to the irrevocable trust because it would be contrary to the legislative intent of section 14-2804 not to revoke a disposition made during a “bigamous” marriage.

The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed. It first rejected Rodriguez’s challenges to personal and subject matter jurisdiction. It held that Rodriguez, his deceased spouse, and her estate, had sufficient contacts with Arizona for the probate court to have exercised jurisdiction, even though the couple resided in Mexico at the time of her death. The court then held that the plain language of A.R.S. § 14-2804 controlled. The statute applied only to “revocable” dispositions. The trust created for Rodriguez became irrevocable at the time of his wife’s death. While the court agreed that the “bigamous” marriage was invalid, the court rejected the argument that the probate court’s declaration of invalidity should relate back to a time before the trust became irrevocable. The court found nothing in the language of the statute, legislative intent, or public policy to support that interpretation.

Judge Norris authored the opinion, which Judges Barker and Thompson joined