Inheritance and statutory rights barred on misconduct of spouse
If a married person cheats on their spouse, leaves them for someone else, or walks away without a good reason and stays gone for at least one year before the spouse dies, that person loses the right to inherit money or property from the spouse who died. They also lose other legal benefits from that estate. The only way to get those rights back is if the couple made up and started living together again.
474.140. and on of spouse. — If any married person voluntarily leaves his or her spouse and goes away and continues with an or his or her spouse without reasonable cause and continues to live separate and apart from his or her spouse for one whole year next preceding his or her death, or dwells with another in a state of continuously, such spouse is forever barred from his or her , , or any from the of his or her spouse unless such spouse is voluntarily to him or her and resumes with him or her.
(RSMo 1939 § 337, A.L. 1955 p. 385 § 250, A.L. 2001 H.B. 537)
Prior revisions: 1929 § 337; 1919 § 333; 1909 § 365
(1963) Wife was barred from statutory rights and in deceased husband's estate on the ground that she had him for more than one year, and husband's of cross in wife's divorce which was not concluded before husband's death held not to constitute acquiescence in such abandonment. Heil v. Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children (A.), 365 S.W.2d 736.
(1967) A may qualify as a "widow" within the of this section only if she has been reduced to that condition by the ordinary and usual vicissitudes of life and not by a felonious act committed by her which created that condition. In re Estate of Laspy (A.), 409 S.W.2d 725.
Tap any gold-underlined word to see what it means.
Legal information, not legal advice. Always confirm with the official source at revisor.mo.gov.