Howell Edmunds Jackson

“ But, lest a decision on this ground be taken as an invitation to further litigation in the New York courts and in this Court, we shall emulate the generosity shown by the Court of Appeals to the appellants and adopt its assumption as to the existence and nature of the contract for the purpose of disposing of the other questions urged.
Rights of succession to the property of a deceased, whether by will or by intestacy, are of statutory creation, and the dead hand rules succession only by sufferance. ”

“ Expectations or hopes of succession, whether testate or intestate, to the property of a living person, do not vest until the death of that person. Appellants cannot successfully attack the constitutionality of the new legislation which went into effect before McGlone's death, and became operative only as the result of his own voluntary act.
McGlone was free to consent to a cancellation or revocation of Helena's waiver, or to make a valid bequest to her of all or any of his property despite it. ”

“ The inconsistency in our old law which compelled a man to support his wife during his lifetime, and permitted him to cut her off with a dollar at his death, has given way to a new public policy which no longer permits a testator to dispose of his property as he pleases.' Matter of Greenberg's Estate, 261 N.Y. 474, 478, 185 N.E. 704, 705, 87 A.L.R. 833. When it enacted § 18 of the Decedent Estate Law, New York at the same time abolished for the future the ancient estates and rights of dower and curtesy, and made important changes in the rules as to descent and distribution of property. ”