Opinion ID: 2589877
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: an intended will beneficiary may maintain a legal malpractice action under negligence or contract theories when the will fails to identify all the decedent's heirs as a result of the attorney's substandard professional performance.

Text: ¶ 18 The beneficiaries argue that: 1) liability for legal malpractice should extend to intended beneficiaries of a will when the will does not carry out the testator's expressed intent and does not identify all of the decedent's heirs; and 2) Oklahoma should follow the majority rule allowing intended beneficiaries to assert malpractice claims based on contract or tort theories of recovery. The lawyer concedes that an attorney could be guilty of malpractice if the client revealed necessary heirship information and the attorney failed to include it in the will. Nevertheless, she asserts that if the client fails to fully and accurately disclose his/her heirs, no malpractice action exists. ¶ 19 We note at the outset that the trial court must resolve the disputed fact questions which exist regarding whether the client disclosed all of his heirs and whether the lawyer: 1) inquired into the client's heirs at law; and 2) offered a proper explanation and advised the client as to what is meant by heirs at law and the significance of including all heirs at law in a will. Nevertheless, the question remains whether liability may be extended to will beneficiaries and under what theory they may assert their cause of action. [10] ¶ 20 Accompanying every contract is a common law duty to perform the contract with care, skill, reasonable experience and faithfulness the thing agreed to be done. A negligent failure to perform these duties is a tort and a breach of contract. [11] An action for breach of contract and an action in tort may arise from the same set of facts. [12] At common law, privity of contract was required before a tort action could arise from a breach of duty created by contractie. limiting liability to contracting parties. [13] However, liability for negligent breach of a contract with a third party is not necessarily dependent upon a pre-existing privity in legal relationship between the person injured and the person causing the injury. [14] ¶ 21 This Court has previously addressed the extension of an attorney's liability, in the absence of privity, to third party, non-client, will beneficiaries in Hesser v. Central National Bank & Trust Co. of Enid, 1998 OK 15, 956 P.2d 864. In Hesser, we held that a will beneficiary could maintain a negligence action against an attorney for failure to have the will properly executed. ¶ 22 Hesser involved an attorney who prepared a will for a client and then failed to properly execute the will. In the probate proceeding, the heirs at law contested the will, arguing that it was not properly executed. Subsequently, the matter was settled by agreement. Nevertheless, one of the beneficiaries under the will brought a legal malpractice action, asserting that the attorney was negligent in failing to properly execute the will. It was uncontested that the plaintiff was a third-party beneficiary to the agreement. ¶ 23 The Hesser Court recognized that: 1) as part of the agreement to prepare the will, the attorney was under a common law duty to perform with care, skill, reasonable expediency and faithfulness to properly execute the will; and 2) a duty created by a contract may be extended to a third party when the contract is made expressly for the benefit of a third-party, non-client beneficiary and the harm to the beneficiary is foreseeable. The Court determined that intended beneficiaries of a will could maintain an action against the lawyer because, as a matter of law, it was foreseeable that an intended beneficiary under the terms of a will could be harmed by an attorney's failure to have the will properly executed. ¶ 24 A few jurisdictions refuse to allow non-client, intended beneficiaries to bring such malpractice actions. [15] However, our decision in Hesser is in accord with the majority of jurisdictions which recognize that intended beneficiaries harmed by a lawyer's malpractice may maintain a cause of action against lawyers who draft testamentary documents even though no attorney-client relationship exists. [16] Some of these courts have recognized such actions as negligence actions, [17] while others have determined that in an intended will beneficiary may proceed under either negligence or contract theories. [18] Those allowing an intended beneficiary of a will to assert a third party breach of contract theory generally recognize that when such a breach occurs, named intended beneficiaries of a will also hold third party beneficiary status under the agreement between the testator and the attorney to draft a will according to the testator's wishes. [19] ¶ 25 We have not previously determined whether a non-client, third party, such as an intended beneficiary of a will, is limited to asserting a legal malpractice action based on a negligence theory of recovery or whether breach of a third party intended beneficiary contract theory may alternatively be asserted. However, in Great Plains Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Dabney, 1993 OK 4, 846 P.2d 1088, we addressed third party beneficiary breach of contract actions in the context of an attorney and a non-client. Dabney involved a bank which asserted that its mortgagee had allegedly contracted with an attorney to search records of the county clerk and that it was a third party beneficiary of the contract. When it was discovered that the attorney breached the contract, the bank brought a third party breach of contract action against the attorney. The Court determined if an attorney breaches a contract with a client by failing to perform a specific, contracted for obligation, a third party, non-client may assert a breach of contract action against the attorney if the non-client can show third party beneficiary status. [20] ¶ 26 Hesser teaches that when a lawyer undertakes to fulfill the testamentary instructions of a client, the lawyer must be aware that any consequences flowing from the lawyer's negligence will have an impact on the named beneficiaries. The failure of a testamentary scheme deprives the intended beneficiaries of their bequests. If the failure is due to substandard professional performance, it is reasonable to conclude that the injured parties should recover against the lawyer who caused their harm. Dabney teaches that when a third party, non-client is the person specifically intended to be benefitted by the legal services, the non-client may assert a breach of contract action against the lawyer. ¶ 27 Our decisions in Hesser and Dabney are consistent with those jurisdictions which allow intended will beneficiaries to assert malpractice claims. Consequently, we hold that an intended will beneficiary may maintain a legal malpractice action under negligence or contract theories against an attorney when the will fails to identify all of the decedent's heirs as a result of the attorney's substandard professional performance. [21]