Source: https://familylaw.typepad.com/virginiafamilylawappeals/wills-trusts-inheritance/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:19:40+00:00

Document:
Just because computers make forgery easier does not mean we should revisit settled case law. Fraud and forgery are relatively rare. Imposing heightened requirements for submitting a will to probate, based on the outlier possibility of forgery, would thwart the salutary simplicity found in our statutory scheme. This simplicity facilitates the ability of property owners to devise their estate by means of a will. As we observed in Savage v. Bowen, 103 Va. 540, 546, 49 S.E. 668, 669-70 (1905) ... "These statutory requirements should not be supplemented by the courts with others that might tend to increase the difficulty of the transaction to such an extent as to practically destroy the right of the uninformed layman to dispose of his property by will."
We adhere to our existing case law, which requires the proponent of a will to prove compliance with statutory requirements for the execution of a will, and, once that has been done, places on the challenger of a will the burden of proving fraud.
Fraud “must be proved; and, in the absence of proof, the court will not imagine that fraud may possibly have been practised, and act upon that imagination. Such a course would convert the law which was meant as a shield, into a sword, and destroy twenty good and fair wills for one that was fraudulent.” Boyd v. Cook, 30 Va. (3 Leigh) 32, 50 (1831).
Nothing in this case was a "suspicious circumstance" which, under Barnes v. Bess, 171 Va. 1, 8, 197 S.E. 403, 405 (1938), would put the burden of proving authenticity on the proponent of the will.
The witnesses in this case had not read the will, but the Court avoids anything that might tend to imply that witnesses should do that.
Such declarations, standing alone, are not admissible as direct evidence to prove or disprove the genuineness of the will; but that in all cases where its genuineness has been assailed by other proper evidence, the declarations are admissible as circumstances, either to strengthen or to weaken the assault, according to their inconsistency or their harmony with the existence or terms of the will.” Id. at 638, 95 S.E. at 399. Therefore, although the proffered statements were “not admissible to prove the substantive fact of forgery,” they were “admissible as showing the state of mind of the testator and his plan and intent as being consistent or inconsistent with a will, the genuineness of which is called in question by other proper evidence.” Id. at 641, 95 S.E. at 400.
This evidentiary holding is troubling, though harmless in this particular case. The Court is saying that in this case, the alleged flaws in the execution of the will are not suspicious at all, and that there is no evidence of any forgery or fraud, merely speculation. And yet it invokes the Samuel exception, even though that exception is subject to a threshhold requirement that there already be "proper evidence" calling genuineness into question. This suggests that the Samuel exception could be applied in any case where a will is disputed.
Potential income from assets held in a trust should not be imputed to a co-beneficiary/co-trustee, Virginia's Court of Appeals found in an alimony case, Montgomery v. Montgomery (ca. Dec. 2017, unpublished). The property in this case was residential and the trial court had imputed rental income from it. The Court of Appeals reasons that the Circuit Court lacked authority to reach into the trust to force the wife and her co-trustee, not a party to the case, to dispose of the trust property; that the wife as co-trustee had not yet distributed the trust assets and so she had not yet inherited the property -- she only had "a future beneficial interest." The trial court could not impute income "based upon undistributed trust assets."
Also, Virginia law "does not require wife to sell her interest in the two residential properties to relieve husband from his spousal support obligation."
But the trial court's imputation of another $5,000 [monthly?], because the wife was voluntarily unemployed, is not reversed. The case is remanded to recalculate income without the rental income.
No fees are awarded, as both sides' arguments "are fairly debatable and indeed, each has partially prevailed."
The cardboard divider where he wrote this was next to a sheet of "Reminders" that said not to make changes on the face of his will without contacting his attorney.
There was abundant evidence that D.I. always used his full signature to approve any official document. Also, he left a note that told his executor where to find his will, but did not mention the binder, which included only a copy of the will.
Overall, the trial court concluded that D.I. did not intend his initialed note to be an actual, official "codicil" amending his will. His brother did not establish by clear and convincing evidence that D.I. intended the document or writing to constitute an addition to, or alteration of, the will, as required by Va. Code Sec. 64.1-404(A).
Evidence of stated intention beats presumption that will revoked when original missing - Va. S.Ct.
A widow was properly allowed to probate a photocopy of a will whose original could not be found, even though there is a presumption that a will was revoked when the original disappeared while in its author's possession, the Virginia Supreme Court says in Edmonds v. Edmonds, 6/4/2015. To overcome that presumption, the proponent -- the person who seeks probate -- of a missing will must prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the testator did not destroy the will with the intention of revoking it. The deceased's will left everything to his current wife and daughter, and nothing to his son from an earlier marriage. He had repeatedly, unequivocally, consistently that that both those things were his intention. There was no evidence of his changing his mind, nor of anything that might have changed his mind.
“We must discern the meaning of ‘present’,” the Virginia Supreme Court says, construing a 1936 road easement that ran “along present mean high water” level. Did the easement in White Marsh Beach, Hampton, move as the shoreline moved, or did it stay where it was, and sink beneath the waves?
The damnable slipperiness of the terms “current” and “present” epitomize the difficulty of legal drafting, of trying to use words to reach across time and impose a coherent will on a changing world. Do these words mean at the time the words are written, signed, ratified or legislated? Or at the time when they are read, interpreted, applied? I and other lawyers struggle with that in family law, and so did the property lawyers, judge and justices in Marble Technologies, Inc. v. Mallon (6/4/15).
A deed, with a map attached, reserved a road easement “Along Present Mean High Water.” It also gave precise compass points for one end of the road and a slight bend in it, and referred to a stake marking one end.
And especially since there were fixed “metes and bounds” and a fixed point involved, there was no ambiguity, and no indication that the easement was moveable, Justice Goodwyn wrote.
So the Court reverses the Circuit Court’s decision that the easement moved. And it finds that the easement is extinguished because it cannot be used for its original purpose, as a road, as it is now under the Chesapeake Bay.
the parties' separation agreement said that the children would be named beneficiaries of the husband's defined-contribution retirement plans. Not what we usually think of as requiring a QDRO. The couple was divorced and the husband remarried. The plan’s policy, stated in the plan documents provided to the husband, was to pay the plan out to the widow unless (1) she consented to another beneficiary or (2) there was a QDRO directing otherwise. The trial court said that the divorce decree which incorporated the agreement was not a QDRO, and the retirement plan had no notice of its provisions and no duties to the intended beneficiaries.
But the Virginia Court of Appeals and the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a Qualified Domestic Relations Order may be made, even though the husband is dead. Virginia law lets Qualified Domestic Relations Orders be made, or amended, long after a divorce is final, for the limited purpose of effectually carrying out what was decided in a separation agreement or divorce decree. This is "merely an administrative mechanism" to enforce rights that have already vested under state law pursuant to, and at the time of, the agreement and divorce decree. Likewise, federal regulations under ERISA, at 29 C.F.R. § 2530.206, expressly allow posthumous QDROs.
However, if the benefits had been considered a survivor benefit and had been from a defined-benefit plan, the result would have been otherwise, under Hopkins v. AT&T Global Information Solutions Co., 105 F.3d 153 (4th Cir. 1997), which held that a survivor benefit vests in the current spouse at the time of retirement. Hopkins was based on regulations that apply to defined-benefit plans, specifically joint-and-survivor annuities, which base the amount of the monthly benefits on both spouses’ life expectancies at the time of retirement.
Until this case, the only remedy in such cases was against the second wife, not the retirement plan. The intended beneficiaries would have to sue her and ask a court to impose a "constructive trust" on the benefits she received from the plan.
The Virginia Supreme Court merely adopted the reasoning of the Court of Appeals without repeating or improving upon it, so to see the reasoning you have to look at the Court of Appeals opinion,Griffin v. Griffin c/o Cowser-Griffin, 62 Va. App. 736, 753 S.E.2d 574 (Va. App. 2014).
FEDERAL LIFE INSURANCE (FEGLI) BENEFITS – BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION CONTROLS. It probably comes as no surprise to many lawyers that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling in Maretta v. Hillman. This was on June 3, and now it’s Hillman v. Maretta of course. You may remember that Mr. Hillman, the federal employee, who had been divorced in 1998, had not changed his employee designation of beneficiary when he died in 2008. Federal statutory law says the designation designates and determines it, and the federal statutory law controls. Virginia law is preempted, as the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause is pretty clear. So is the practice pointer here, and you have probably been told already numerous times that you should tell your federal employee client who wants or is facing a divorce to get that designation changed right away – which, considering the formal requirements for designation change and the role of an existing spouse or former spouse, is easier said than done (but perhaps a lawyer can consider his or her job done once the basic admonition is uttered – and recorded).
Virginia's legislature recently finished its work for the year and made some significant changes to divorce law. Here are the legislature's official summaries of the bills enacted this session, with links to the complete texts and legislative histories.
HB 282 Divorce or annulment; revocation of death benefits. For more information see our recent blog posting, "Virginia legislature addresses beneficiary-designation mess."
HB 126 Affidavits; use in no-fault divorce cases. For more information see our recent blog posting, "New Virginia law allows uncontested divorce without court hearing statewide, but some of us already do that."
HB 677 Power of attorney; termination. Provides that an agent's authority under a power of attorney terminates by operation of law if either the agent or principal file an action for separate maintenance from the other or for custody or visitation of a child in common with the other.
HB 104 / SB 60 Divorce; failure to respond by defendant. Provides that if a defendant fails to file an answer in a divorce suit or otherwise appear after having been personally served with notice of the suit, no additional notice to take depositions is required to be served on the defendant and the court may enter any order or final decree without notice to the defendant. As introduced, this bill was a recommendation of the Boyd-Graves Conference. This bill is identical to SB 60.
HB 635 Equitable distribution; change of venue. Provides that, upon or after the entry of a final divorce decree, a court may, upon its own motion or the motion of any party, transfer to the circuit court for the county or city where either party resides the authority to make additional orders to effectuate or enforce an equitable distribution award made in the decree or a stipulation, contract, or agreement that has been affirmed, ratified, and incorporated in the decree.
HB 272 Death, marriage, or divorce records; changes time period before becomes public. Reduces the time period after which death, marriage, divorce, or annulment records become public from 50 years to 25 years.
PROPERTY DIVISION – SOURCE-OF-FUNDS – TRACING – GIFT – CONVEYANCE TO MARRIED COUPLE. The Court of Appeals recently went over again the law of tracing separate property interests, such as inheritance and gift, and of marital property in which it was all co-mingled. This was a case of a husband and wife buying his family’s farm from his mother. When the divorce litigation took place in Stevens v. Stevens, ___ Va. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___, 26 VLW 814 (12/13/11), the husband argued that even though he and his wife had taken title to the farm jointly, he still owned a one-quarter interest in it as his separate property because of a surviving trust obligation to divide it in the future among his parents’ four sons. What complicated things was that the farm when purchased by them was owned by a family trust. The terms of the trust governed, and required that the trustee be directed to sell by the mother, which he was. Its main provision was that the trustee had to hold all the real property for the lifetime of the parents or until they, or the survivor of them, should instruct the trustee to sell or otherwise distribute the assets. The sale took place when both parents directed the brother who served as trustee to convey to husband and wife, so it was presumably transmuted. And being no longer a trust asset, the farm was not subject to any term of the trust. Although there was a provision about distribution of the farm upon the death of the parents, that was irrelevant now because it had been properly conveyed to the now-divorcing husband and wife and further trust terms were irrelevant. The brothers had no more than a vested remainder in those trust assets, which would be no more than that until the death of the parents if they still held the farm at death, which they now will not. The farm after sale was the simple marital property of the husband and wife. The husband had an argument that one quarter of this conveyance was a gift to him because the price was $100,000, and husband and wife had given a purchase money note for only $75,000, so therefore that $25,000 forgiveness of their debt must have been a gift from his parents. At best, the Court of Appeals said these facts would “only suggest” a gift. Conveyance was still to husband and wife in joint title and husband had not proved inheritance or gift, and the marital property classification of the entire farm was upheld.

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