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Estate of Smith2/3/1998
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
May a duly executed will be denied admission to probate based on a finding that the testator was mistaken as to how the will would dispose of her property? No. Mistake is a proper ground for contesting a will only if it negates testamentary intent, by showing the testator did not intend the document offered for probate to operate as a revocable disposition of her property effective upon her death.
This case arises on an appeal by Charles Smith from a judgment refusing to admit a statutory will with trust into probate. The trial court found (1) the will was signed by mistake; (2) it was not shown that the testator knew and approved the will's contents and intended it to have testamentary effect; and (3) the testamentary intent reflected in the will was unclear. We reverse; the trial court's conclusions rest on a misapplication of standards governing the validity of statutory wills in circumstances not present here, and on an overly broad view of mistake as a basis for a will contest.
BACKGROUND
Belva C. P. Smith died June 4, 1996 at the age of 83. On June 27, 1996, the decedent's daughter India Rose Smith filed a petition for probate of a holographic will dated April 30, 1982, which left the estate in equal shares to India Rose and her daughter Melissa. On August 12, 1996, the decedent's husband Taylor Smith filed a petition for probate of a statutory will with trust executed by the decedent. This will is not dated, but the first page of the form bears a notation indicating the form was revised in April 1985. The will is subscribed by two witnesses, Richard H. Carter and Linda C. Jones. The decedent signed the will in five places. On pages one and two she wrote her name on lines identifying the will as hers. She signed in the box provided for cash gifts, after writing "none" on the other lines in that box. She signed the property Disposition clause, which gives all property other than personal and household items "TO MY SPOUSE IF LIVING; IF NOT LIVING, THEN IN ONE TRUST TO PROVIDE FOR THE SUPPORT AND EDUCATION OF MY CHILDREN AND THE DESCENDANTS OF ANY DECEASED CHILD UNTIL I HAVE NO LIVING CHILD UNDER 21 YEARS OF AGE." The decedent signed again at the end of the document on the line for "Signature of Testator." She failed to identify any executors or trustees in the spaces provided for those purposes. Taylor Smith executed a reciprocal statutory will with trust in exactly the same manner as the decedent, and with the same witnesses' signatures.
The trial court held two hearings on the competing petitions for probate. Witnesses including India Rose, Melissa, and friends and neighbors of the decedent testified to her close relationship with India Rose and Melissa. On occasions as recent as 1988 or 1989 the decedent had expressed her intention to leave her estate to them. The decedent's mental faculties had declined in her later years and a conservatorship of the person was imposed on her in 1994 or early 1995. India Rose testified that the problems leading to the conservatorship began a few years before it was imposed. Melissa and other witnesses testified the decedent had problems with her memory beginning in 1988 or 1989.
Richard Carter, who witnessed the statutory wills executed by the decedent and her husband, was their tax preparer. He testified that he had no specific memory of witnessing the wills, but knew it was before June 30, 1992, when he moved his office. That was the last time his former secretary Linda Jones, the other subscribing witness, had worked for him. Carter thought the wills were probably executed sometime in 1988 or 1989. He stated the decedent had no difficulty discussing her tax returns
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