Decedents' Estates February 2004 Flashcards
(4 cards)
Summary
Mary has standing to contest the will because, if the will were denied probate, she would be Testator’s sole heir. On the other hand, Grandchild lacks standing to contest the will because if the will were denied probate, Grandchild would not be entitled to any share of Testator’s estate. Mary, who is entitled to contest the will, is not likely to be successful on the ground of lack of mental capacity but might prevail on the ground of lack of due execution in states applying the strict compliance doctrine.
Mary has standing to contest the will. However, Grandchild does not have standing to contest the will.
Wills can be contested only by persons who would be better off financially if the will were denied probate than they would be if the will were admitted to probate. See generally William M. McGovern & Sheldon F. Kurtz, WILLS,TRUSTS,AND ESTATES 464 (2d ed. 2001). If the rule were otherwise, wills would be subject to suits by persons seeking to extort money from legitimate beneficiaries who want to avoid litigation.
Under the laws of all states, an intestate’s children take to the exclusion of their own descendants. Thus, if Testator’s will were denied probate, Testator’s entire estate would pass to Mary; nothing would pass to the grandchildren or great-grandchild. Mary, therefore, would have standing to contest the will because as Testator’s only child she would be her only heir if the will were denied probate. On the other hand, Grandchild would not be financially better off if the will were denied probate and, thus, would lack standing to contest the will.
Testator probably had the mental capacity to execute a will at the time she executed it.
In order to execute a will, a testator must have mental capacity. A testator meets this requirement if the testator knows (1) the nature and extent of her property, (2) the persons who are the natural objects of the testator’s bounty and have the highest moral claims to the testator’s property, (3) the disposition the testator is attempting to make, and (4) the interrelationship of these items in connection with the testamentary plan formulated in the will. See generally Jesse Dukeminier & Stanley M. Johanson, WILLS,TRUSTSAND ESTATES 163 (6thed. 2000).
All persons are afforded the presumption that they have mental capacity. As a result, the burden of proving that the testator lacks mental capacity rests on the contestant to the will. Here, there are two arguments to support a will contest on mental incapacity grounds, although Bank has good responses to both arguments.
First, Testator arguably did not know the nature and extent of her property. Testator could not identify the stocks that she owned or name the stockbroker who managed them. Also, she could not recall the addresses of her two residences. On the other hand, she did know what she was worth and she did know that she owned two residences. Thus, whether she lacked mental capacity on this ground may ultimately depend on how precise a testator must be regarding the nature and extent of her property. Courts often are very lenient and uphold the wills of elderly testators who at least grasp the big picture about their financial affairs. Furthermore, because of the burden of proof, in a very close case the contestant will lose.
Second, Testator could not identify one of the persons with a high moral claim to her property, namely her great-grandchild. On the other hand, Testator could identify her more closely related relatives, and in particular Mary, whom she was intending to disinherit. Her failure to recall whether she had a great-grandchild probably would not be dispositive of her mental capacity. Courts have not required elderly testators to know the number of their remote descendants, particularly in a mobile society where people may have infrequent contacts with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Testator’s will was not duly executed under the strict compliance doctrine but could be upheld as valid if the court either adopts the substantial compliance doctrine or infers that Testator requested the witnesses to sign.
At common law, if the execution of a will did not strictly adhere to the required formalities, the will would be invalid and the testator would have died intestate. The facts state that under the governing law, a properly executed will must be signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses after the testator has declared the instrument to be her will and has requested that the witnesses act in such capacity. Here, the signing, witnessing, and declaration requirements have been satisfied, but the facts state that Testator did not specifically request the witnesses to act as such. Thus, courts adhering to the strict common-law approach (known as the strict compliance doctrine) would invalidate the will. See generally McGovern & Kurtz, supra, at 170-72.
On the other hand, statutes in somestates and a judicial decision in at least one state have tempered the harsh consequences of the common-law rule by adopting a “substantial compliance” approach to determining whether a will has been validly executed. See generally John H. Langbein, Substantial Compliance with the Wills Act,88 HARV.L.REV. 489 (1975). Under this approach, if the execution of a will substantially complies with most of the formalities, or at least the most important of them, the will is valid. See, e.g., In re Will of Ranney 124 N.J. 1, 589 A.2d 1339 (1991) (will valid even though witnesses only witnessed the self-proving will affidavit and did not witness the actual will).
Similarly, §2-503 of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) grants a court a so-called “dispensing power” under which a court can probate a will when its execution failed to comply with all of the execution formalities so long as the evidence is clear and convincing that the decedent intended the document to be her will. In this case, the failure to request that the witnesses act as such when they signed in the physical presence of Testator can easily be ignored under this statute if, as the facts suggest, Testator clearly intended Charity to take under her will. The statement, “My family has enough” is evidence of Testator’s intent.
It might also be argued from the context and surrounding circumstances that Testator implicitly asked the witnesses to sign even if she did not do so expressly. She saw them sign, and she declared the instrument to be her will. At least one court has adopted that approach and thus avoided an all-out adoption of the substantial compliance theory. See Matter of Graham’s Estate, 295 N.W.2d 414 (Iowa 1980).
