Case Title: Estate of Giguere

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2024-05-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
 2024 ME 41 
Docket: 
Cum-23-248 
Argued: 
January 9, 2024 
Decided: 
 May 23, 2024 
 
Panel: 
 STANFILL, C.J., and MEAD, HORTON, CONNORS, and DOUGLAS, JJ. 
 
 
ESTATE OF LINDA C. GIGUERE 
 
 
DOUGLAS, J. 
 
[¶1]  Eric and Mark Giguere appeal from an order on a petition for 
instructions (Cumberland County Probate Court, Aranson, J.) determining that 
the entire estate of Linda C. Giguere passes by intestacy to her daughter, Hilary 
Barlow.  They argue that the court erred by declining to reform Linda’s 2013 
will.  We disagree and affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  Linda Giguere died on September 22, 2021.  Linda’s1 Last Will and 
Testament, dated January 16, 2013, nominated William Giguere, her husband, 
to serve as personal representative.  Article Six of the 2013 will established a 
trust for the benefit of William in the event that Linda predeceased him 
providing in relevant part as follows: 
 
1  Once individuals have been identified by their full name, we may refer to them subsequently 
only by first or last name for the sake of economy or clarity. 
 
2 
 
If my husband, WILLIAM D. GIGUERE, is deemed to have 
survived me, all the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, 
whether real, personal, or mixed, including the proceeds of any life 
insurance which may become payable to my estate, I give, devise 
and bequeath to ERIC GIGUERE, presently of Westbrook, Maine, as 
Trustee for my husband, WILLIAM D. GIGUERE, hereinafter 
“WILLIAM.” . . . The trustee may, in his sole discretion, amend this 
trust to conform with changes in federal or state law or regulations 
established thereunder in order to better effect the purposes of the 
trust. . . .  
 
 
MARK GIGUERE shall be trust protector. 
 
. . . . 
 
 
Upon WILLIAM’s death, the Trustee may pay the expenses of 
his last illness and funeral, and all administrative expenses relating 
to this Trust, including reasonable attorneys’ and accountants’ fees 
. . . .  Whatever balance is then remaining shall be paid to 
WILLIAM’s children, in equal shares, the children of a deceased to 
take the parent’s share by right of representation. 
 
 
[¶3]  Article Seven of the 2013 will provided as follows:  
 
 
I have in mind all other possible recipients of my bounty, 
including my daughter, HILARY BARLOW, from whom I am 
estranged, but unless I have specifically mentioned them herein, to 
them I leave nothing. 
 
The 2013 will contained no provision addressing the disposition of Linda’s 
residuary estate in the event that William predeceased her.   
[¶4]  William died on March 7, 2015, predeceasing Linda.  Linda did not 
execute a new will after William’s death. 
 
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[¶5]  On October 6, 2021, Linda’s daughter, Hilary Barlow, filed in 
Cumberland County Probate Court an application for the informal appointment 
of a personal representative of her mother’s estate.  The application stated that 
Hilary was “unaware of any unrevoked testamentary instrument relating to 
property having situs” in Maine.  The Register of Probate appointed Hilary as 
personal representative on October 28, 2021. 
[¶6]  On June 14, 2022, Attorney Jeremy W. Dean, acting as Linda’s 
attorney and the person in possession of Linda’s will, filed a petition for formal 
probate of the 2013 will and appointment of personal representative, 
requesting the removal of Hilary as personal representative and petitioning for 
the formal appointment of an individual named Teri McRae to serve as personal 
representative.  The petition stated that the person named as personal 
representative in the 2013 will, William Giguere, was deceased and that the 
successor personal representative named in the will, Attorney Susan Hunter, 
had renounced her right to be appointed.  The petition identified William’s sons, 
Eric P. Giguere and Mark S. Giguere, as devisees. 
[¶7]  On August 2, 2022, Eric filed a petition for the formal probate of the 
will and appointment of a personal representative.  Among other things, the 
petition requested that Eric be appointed as personal representative of the 
 
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estate because he is both a beneficiary of the trust and a residual devisee of the 
2013 will, and Teri McCrae “has no priority for appointment.”  Eric filed another 
petition on October 27, 2022, requesting the appointment of Attorney Justin D. 
Leblanc as personal representative.  Subsequently, on November 18, 2022, the 
court entered an order removing Hilary as personal representative and 
appointing Attorney LeBlanc as successor personal representative. 
[¶8]  On January 9, 2023, Attorney LeBlanc filed a petition for 
instructions.  The petition asserted that the 2013 will “does not dispose of 
[Linda’s] estate” because William predeceased Linda and the 2013 will “makes 
no provision for the disposition of tangible personal property or the residuary 
estate in the event that William . . . predeceases [Linda].”  The petition 
additionally asserted that the 2013 will “appears to contain a scrivener’s error”; 
that the court may look to extrinsic evidence if the decedent’s intent cannot be 
ascertained from the four corners of the will; that the 2013 will “plainly 
expresses that [Linda] did not intend to leave anything to her daughter . . . or to 
anyone else not specifically mentioned,” but under the law of intestacy, Hilary 
would inherit Linda’s estate; and in light of a “strong presumption against 
intestacy,” the court has authority under the Maine Probate Code to reform the 
 
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will.  The petition requested that the court provide instructions on “how and to 
whom [Linda’s] estate should be distributed.” 
[¶9]  The parties filed responses to the petition for instructions.  The 
court scheduled a status conference for April 5, 2023. 
[¶10]  On March 22, 2023, the parties deposed Attorney Susan Hunter, 
whom Linda and William had consulted for estate planning advice and who had 
drafted several wills for them, including Linda’s 2013 will.  Attorney Hunter 
first prepared wills for Linda and William in March 2011.  By 2012, William’s 
health was deteriorating.  Attorney Hunter prepared revised wills for Linda and 
William in 2012 to reflect several requested changes in their estate plan, 
including the establishment of reciprocal special needs trusts.  Linda’s 2012 
will, executed on July 6, 2012, provided that if William survived her, the 
remainder of her estate (excluding tangible personal property which was 
separately devised) would go to a trust for William’s benefit.  Her 2012 will 
designated William’s son Eric as trustee and provided that upon William’s 
death, “[w]hatever balance is then remaining” in the trust would pass to Linda’s 
daughter, Hilary.  It further specified that if William predeceased Linda, the 
remainder of her estate was to pass to Hilary.2 
 
2  At the time they executed the 2012 wills, Linda and William each executed general durable 
powers of attorney appointing the other as his or her attorney-in-fact.  In Linda’s case, Hilary was 
 
6 
[¶11]  In January 2013, Linda contacted Attorney Hunter and said that 
she wanted to omit Hilary from her will.  Attorney Hunter made the requested 
change by inserting the language in Article Seven, quoted above.  When 
Attorney Hunter asked how Linda wanted to dispose of the remainder of her 
estate in the event William predeceased her, Linda said that “she wasn’t ready 
to make a decision and so she said we’ll deal with that later.”  Attorney Hunter 
distinctly understood at the time that “[Linda] wasn’t ready” to designate a 
recipient of her residuary estate in the event that William predeceased her.  
Attorney Hunter did not recall having a discussion with Linda about the 
consequences of failing to designate a residuary devisee in the will or how 
intestate succession operated under Maine law.  Attorney Hunter was certain, 
though, that it was Linda’s intention at the time not to include a provision in the 
2013 will disposing of her residuary estate in the event that she survived 
William and that the absence of such provision was not a scrivener’s error.3 
 
designated as an alternate attorney-in-fact in the event William was unable or unwilling to serve and 
William’s power of attorney, on the other hand, did not name an alternate.  Linda’s 2012 power of 
attorney was never revoked. 
3  Attorney Hunter specifically noted that the only residuary clause in the 2013 will is in Article 
Six, and it is contingent on the establishment of the testamentary trust in the event that William 
survives Linda. 
 
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[¶12]  On June 20, 2023, after the parties had submitted supplemental 
memoranda setting forth their respective arguments, the Probate Court issued 
an order on the petition for instructions.  The court rejected the request to 
reform the 2013 will to name Eric and Mark as residuary devisees, stating:   
While the [c]ourt may reform the Will, it must rely on clear and 
convincing evidence of intention concerning the disposition of the 
residuary when William predeceased Linda.  The evidence is not 
clear and convincing.  The [c]ourt cannot engage in speculation as 
to Linda [Giguere’s] intentions concerning a pre-deceased 
beneficiary. 
 
The court concluded that “there is no ambiguity” in the 2013 will, that “[t]here 
is simply no beneficiary at all for the residuary in the event that [William] 
predeceased [Linda],” and that “[t]he lack of a successor is not a scriven[e]r’s 
error.”  Accordingly, the court determined that since the 2013 will did not fully 
dispose of Linda’s estate, the residuary estate passed by intestate succession to 
Hilary.  See 18-C M.R.S. § 2-101(1) (2024) (“Any part of a decedent’s estate not 
effectively disposed of by will passes by intestate succession to the decedent’s 
heirs as prescribed in this Code, except as modified by the decedent’s will.”). 
 
[¶13]  Eric and Mark timely appealed. 
II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶14]  Their principal contention on appeal is that the Probate Court’s 
finding that Linda’s 2013 will did not provide for the distribution of her 
 
8 
residuary estate to them in the event that William predeceased her “was against 
the great preponderance of the believable evidence.”  They argue that the 
absence of a provision disposing of the residuary estate must have been a 
scrivener's error, otherwise the result—that Hilary inherits via intestacy—is 
“illogical” because it conflicts with Linda’s clear intent expressed in Article 
Seven that Hilary be left “nothing” in the will.  They maintain that Articles Six 
and Seven, when read together, provide “powerful circumstantial evidence” of 
Linda’s intention that supports their request for reforming the will.   
A. 
Standard of Review 
[¶15]  In reviewing an order of the Probate Court, “we defer to the 
Probate Court on factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, but we 
review de novo the application of the law to the facts.”  Estate of Greenblatt, 
2014 ME 32, ¶ 12, 86 A.3d 1215 (quotation marks omitted).  As applied here, 
under the clear error standard, the party who had the burden of proof in the 
proceeding below can prevail on “a sufficiency of the evidence challenge to a 
finding that his or her burden has not been met only by demonstrating that a 
contrary finding is compelled by the evidence in the record.”  Dickens v. Boddy, 
2015 ME 81 ¶ 12, 119 A.3d 722; see also St. Louis v. Wilkinson Law Offices, P.C., 
2012 ME 116, ¶ 16, 55 A.3d 443 (“As with any other appeal, on issues on which 
 
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the plaintiff had the burden of proof, the clear error standard of review requires 
that, to overturn a finding that a plaintiff has failed to prove one or more 
elements of a claim, the plaintiff must demonstrate that a contrary finding is 
compelled by the evidence.”); Handrahan v. Malenko, 2011 ME 15, ¶ 13, 12 A.3d 
79 (“For an appellant who had the burden of proof at trial to prevail on a 
sufficiency of the evidence challenge on appeal, that party must demonstrate 
that a contrary finding was compelled by the evidence.”).  
B. 
Reformation of the Will 
[¶16]  A court may reform a will  “to conform the terms to the [testator’s] 
intention if it is proved by clear and convincing evidence what the [testator’s] 
intention was and that the terms of the [will] were affected by a mistake of fact 
or law, whether in expression or inducement.”  18-C M.R.S. § 2-805 (2024) 
(emphasis added); see also 18-C M.R.S. § 3-407 (2024) (“Contestants of a will 
have the burden of establishing lack of testamentary intent or capacity, undue 
influence, fraud, duress, mistake or revocation.”); Zani v. Zani, 2023 ME 42, ¶ 12, 
299 A.3d 9.  The purpose of reformation is to give effect to a testator’s clear 
intent, not to rewrite a will for the testator in the guise of interpreting it.  Eric 
and Mark, as the parties petitioning to reform the 2013 will, had the burden of 
proving by clear and convincing evidence that Linda intended that they be the 
 
10 
residuary devisees of her estate if William predeceased Linda.  The Probate 
Court concluded they had not so proven, and the record does not compel a 
contrary result.  
[¶17]  The court correctly determined that the 2013 will does not provide 
for the disposition of Linda’s residuary estate in the event that she outlived 
William.  The plain language of the will makes that evident.  As the court put it, 
“[i]n this case there is no ambiguity. . . . There is simply no beneficiary at all for 
the residuary in the event that [William] predeceased her.”  Moreover, Article 
Six’s provision that Eric and Mark receive “[w]hatever balance is then 
remaining” refers only to remaining assets in the trust established in that article 
if William survived Linda.  Since William died before Linda, the trust described 
in Article Six never came into existence.  
[¶18]  The court found—and the record does not compel a finding to the 
contrary—that when executing the 2013 will, Linda did not intend for Eric and 
Mark to be residuary devisees in the event that she survived their father.  The 
unrebutted deposition testimony of Attorney Hunter established that Linda 
was aware that the 2013 will did not provide for the disposition of her 
 
11 
residuary estate if William predeceased her.  Linda acknowledged that she 
“wasn’t ready to make [that] decision” and preferred to “deal with that later.” 
[¶19]  Further, not only did Eric and Mark fail to meet their burden of 
proving by clear and convincing evidence the very premise of their reformation 
request—that the omission of a residuary clause in the 2013 will was a 
scrivener’s error—but the record squarely contradicts that assertion.  Attorney 
Hunter, the individual who prepared the 2013 will, testified unequivocally that 
the omission was not a scrivener’s error.  It was purposeful because Linda was 
not prepared at that time to name a devisee.  This is further supported by the 
fact that Linda’s 2012 will did name a residuary devisee in the event that Linda 
survived William, indicating that she was likely aware of the need for, and 
function of, such a provision. 
[¶20]  Eric and Mark challenge Attorney Hunter’s credibility and posit 
that her testimony was self-serving.  The court, however, expressly found that 
Attorney Hunter was an “experience[d] counsel” in this area.  More importantly, 
there is no compelling evidence in the record to support the claim that  Attorney 
Hunter had testified untruthfully.   
 
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C. 
Distribution by Intestacy 
[¶21]  Because the 2013 will was silent about the disposition of Linda’s 
residuary estate in the event she survived William, the court correctly 
determined that those assets passed by way of intestate succession to her only 
child, Hilary.  See 18-C M.R.S. § 2-101(1) 4 (“Any part of a decedent’s estate not 
effectively disposed of by will passes by intestate succession to the decedent’s 
heirs as prescribed in this Code, except as modified by the decedent’s will.”); 
18-C M.R.S. § 2-103 (2024) (“[T]he entire intestate estate if there is no surviving 
spouse[] passes . . . [t]o the decedent's descendants per capita at each 
generation.”).  
[¶22]  Eric and Mark contend that the court’s application of 18-C M.R.S. 
§ 2-101(1) “violates Maine’s presumption against intestacy” because a will 
must be construed “to avoid intestacy if at all possible.”  Estate of Thompson, 
414 A.2d 881, 887-88 (Me. 1980).  Their argument is misplaced.  The 
“presumption against intestacy” is a “canon[] of construction” that is employed 
in interpreting an ambiguous provision in a will by “presum[ing] a testator has 
 
4  Even though the former Probate Code in Title 18-A of the Maine Revised Statutes was in effect 
at the time Linda executed the 2013 Will, the provisions of the Maine Uniform Probate Code in Title 
18-C apply here because Linda’s death occurred after Title 18-C’s effective date of September 1, 2019.  
See 18-C M.R.S. § 8-301(2)(A)-(A-1) (2024) (stating that Title 18-C applies to any will or intestate 
succession of “decedents who die on or after the effective date”).  
 
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passed her entire estate through her will unless it appears that she intended to 
do otherwise.”  Estate of Wilson, 2003 ME 92, ¶ 16, 828 A.2d 784; see also 
Lothrop v. Woodford’s Congregational Parish, 119 Me. 42, 43, 109 A. 371, 371 
(Me. 1920) (“The presumption against intestacy . . . is only one of fact, and is 
overcome by the plain language of the will [because] the language in [the will] 
is clear . . . that the testator, either purposely or by omission, has failed to dispose 
of all his property [thereunder].” (emphasis added)).   
[¶23]  Here, as the court correctly concluded, “there is no ambiguity.”  The 
2013 will does not have a provision disposing of the residuary estate in the 
event Linda survived William.  As the record makes clear, Linda was aware of 
this and “wasn’t ready” to address this eventuality at the time the will was 
executed.5   
 
[¶24]  For these reasons, we affirm the Probate Court’s judgment. 
 
5  The Probate Court considered 18-C M.R.S. § 2-101(2) (2024) in evaluating whether Eric and 
Mark had met their burden of proof to reform the 2013 will and concluded that the 2013 will’s 
“exclusion of Hilary Barlow and ‘all other possible recipients of my bounty’ does not ‘expressly 
exclude or limit’ Hilary’s right ‘to succeed to property of the decedent passing by intestate succession.’”  
Section 2-101(2) provides:   
 
A decedent by will may expressly exclude or limit the right of an individual or class to 
succeed to property of the decedent passing by intestate succession.  If that individual 
or member of that class survives the decedent, the share of the decedent’s intestate 
estate to which that individual or class would have succeeded passes as if that 
individual or each member of that class had disclaimed the individual’s or member’s 
intestate share. 
 
 
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The entry is: 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Adam J. Shub, Esq. (orally), and Jonathan Mermin, Esq., Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau 
& Pachios, LLP, Portland, for appellants Mark Giguere and Eric Giguere 
 
Erica M. Johanson, Esq., and Anna Polko Clark, Esq. (orally), Jensen Baird, 
Portland, for appellee Hilary Barlow 
 
 
Cumberland County Probate Court docket number 2021-1504 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY 
 
Section 2-101(2) “is a new concept in Maine law in its recognition of a negative will.”  18-C M.R.S.A. 
§ 2-101 Unif. Probate Code Me. cmt. (2019) (quotation marks omitted).  There was no counterpart to 
this provision in the former Probate Code, Title 18-A.  L.D. 123, Cmt. to 18-C M.R.S. § 2-101, § A-2, at 
95 (128th Legis. 2017).  We have not yet had occasion to address section 2-101(2) and decline to do 
so here because Eric and Mark did not brief or develop an argument concerning the applicability of 
this statute and thus have not preserved the issue.  See Holland v. Sebunya, 2000 ME 160, ¶ 9 n.6, 759 
A.2d 205 (“The failure to mention an issue in the brief or at argument is construed as either an 
abandonment or a failure to preserve that issue.”); see also Alexander, Maine Appellate Practice, § 404 
(6th ed. 2022).  They only addressed section 2-101(2) briefly during rebuttal at oral argument; this 
was insufficient to preserve the issue for our review.  Cf. Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC v. Bartlett, 2014 
ME 37, ¶ 24, 87 A.3d 741 (“Because [appellant] raised [the] issue for the first time in its reply brief, 
[appellant] has failed to preserve [its] argument.”).