Opinion ID: 1282574
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Evaluating the Evidence

Text: In deciding whether these parties made a contract in 1959, we can give little guidance to those who will draft contracts to make wills in the future. The legislature sought to provide that guidance in 1973 by enacting ORS 112.270, which now provides: (1) A contract to make a will or devise, or not to revoke a will or devise   executed after January 1, 1974, shall be established only by: (a) Provisions of a will stating mutual provisions of the contract; (b) An express reference in a will to a contract and extrinsic evidence proving the terms of the contract; or (c) A writing signed by the decedent evidencing the contract. (2) The execution of a joint will or mutual wills does not create a presumption of a contract not to revoke the will or wills. We decide here only what must be shown to prove the existence of a contract allegedly made before the effective date of this statute. Most troubling in this case is the significance to be given to the term agreement or its equivalents ( e.g., trade-off) when one of the parties has used it to describe his or her testamentary arrangements. The evidence in this case clearly convinces us that Charles, Sr., and Lillian initially disagreed about the disposition of their property, that they agreed in December, 1959, to the extent they executed virtually identical wills, and that on several occasions Charles, Sr., indicated to others that this disposition was the result of an agreement with Lillian. We also find it is much more probable than not that Charles, Sr., and Lillian, who felt quite differently about their son and grandchildren, were acting at least in part from something other than similar tastes and affections, see American Nat'l Red Cross, 274 Or. at 240, 545 P.2d 883, when they each decided to give but $50 to their son and to split the remainder between plaintiff and LaVonne. But the mere fact of an agreement does not establish an enforceable contract. Ernest et ux. v. Pezoldt et al., 223 Or. 97, 105, 353 P.2d 621 (1960) (The term `agreement,' as interpreted by a layman, does not necessarily imply a legally binding contract). We agree with Professor Sparks that the rule against presuming from the mere presence of mutual wills that they were executed in pursuance of a contract is not altered by evidence that the parties had `agreed' to the making of such wills. Of course they had so agreed. The mere presence of such wills reveals that the parties must have arrived at an understanding or agreement concerning their testamentary dispositions. Such discussions and understandings between persons of close affinities, especially between husbands and wives, are not unusual and the fact that they have taken place is no indication that there has been any thought of a binding contract. Sparks, Contracts to Make Wills 27-28 (1956). Nevertheless, in several cases, this court has found contracts based on little more than the existence of mutual wills executed at the same time and place, along with extrinsic evidence of the testators' wishes, if there was the slightest indication of an agreement. For instance, Schramm v. Burkhart, 137 Or. 208, 211-12, 2 P.2d 14 (1931), stressed identical terms, execution at the same time and place, attestation by the same witnesses, and preparation by the same attorney  circumstances which must exist in most mutual reciprocal will situations  and found a contract on the grounds that the wills show a clear intention on the part of both testators. Taylor v. Wait, supra , stressed that the husband and wife had knowledge of each other's wills and that the naming of the    beneficiaries was the result of their common understanding and purpose. 140 Or. at 687, 14 P.2d 283. This, too, is probably true of most pairs of mutual reciprocal wills. The Taylor court also recited every instance in which either testator had stated to others testamentary intentions, but in only one statement (husband told one witness simply that he and his wife `had made an agreement with each other   ') did either indicate that these intentions resulted from any kind of agreement. Id. at 689-90, 14 P.2d 283. Similarly, in Stevens v. Myers, 91 Or. 114, 177 P. 37 (1919), a contract was found where the only evidence beyond the mutual reciprocal wills themselves was an attorney's testimony that both husband and wife told him that they wanted their property to go equally to their children after the last surviving spouse dies. 91 Or. at 126, 177 P. 37. And in Patecky v. Friend et al, 220 Or. 612, 350 P.2d 170 (1960), the court found a contract established by nothing more than the wills themselves and statements by the testators reassuring their daughter that she would get all their property after both of them were dead; the only statements relative to agreement were we have agreed to leave everything to each other, and when we are gone it all goes to you, and the way we got the will fixed, if I go first then [my wife] gets it and    [when both are dead]    then it goes to [my daughter]. 220 Or. at 618, 623, 350 P.2d 170. As recently as 1980, the Court of Appeals in Woelke v. Calfee, 45 Or. App. 459, 608 P.2d 606 (1980), found a contract, stressing identical language, simultaneous execution, preparation by the same attorney, and statements by both testators that they had agreed or had an agreement about the disposition of their property. 45 Or. App. at 463-64, 608 P.2d 606. Were we simply to compare the evidence in those cases with the evidence here, we would be inclined to find that a contract was made. However, the findings that other justices have made while sitting as triers of fact on records unique to the cases before them do not establish rules of law to be applied to our determination of facts upon the record now before us. Bales v. SAIF, 294 Or. 224, 235, 656 P.2d 300 (1982); Bend Millwork v. Dept. of Rev., 285 Or. 577, 588, 592 P.2d 986 (1979). See also Reynolds Metals Co. v. Dept. of Rev., 299 Or. 592, 597, 705 P.2d 712 (1985) (Indeed, in the process of publicly sifting the evidence, we have sometimes expressed as `holdings' what are really only `findings,' and this has led to confusion as to what rules of law are laid down in our cases.); Southern Oregon Broadcasting Co. v. Dept. of Revenue, 287 Or. 35, 42, 597 P.2d 795, cert. den. 444 U.S. 932, 100 S.Ct. 277, 62 L.Ed.2d 190 (1979) ( The lack of comprehensive standards and methods of assessing different types of property promulgated under ORS 308.205 in advance of the particular assessment reduces both courts from the function of clarifying law to a factfinding function and eliminates any precedential value of a decision even with respect to the same property of the same taxpayer from one year to the next.) (Emphasis added). Our decision must turn not on whether we can discover in the record language analogous to that of agreement upon which previous members of this court have relied in finding the existence of a contract, but on what the record indicates that Charles, Sr., and Lillian probably understood their agreement to be. Plaintiff contends, and the Court of Appeals properly held, that if two parties execute wills pursuant to a contract, once the survivor accepts benefits [11] under the other's will, a court of equity may enforce the contract and prevent a fraud by the survivor who might dispose of the property inconsistently with the contract; this rule holds, notwithstanding the well-established law in Oregon that every will remains revocable during the testator's lifetime. 70 Or. App. at 433, 689 P.2d 1004, citing Schramm v. Burkhart, supra, 137 Or. at 215, 2 P.2d 14; Taylor v. Wait, supra, 140 Or. at 684-85, 14 P.2d 283; Irwin v. First Nat'l Bank, 212 Or. 534, 541, 321 P.2d 299 (1958). Parties contracting to make wills need not also expressly contract not to revoke those wills, to make the contractual disposition of property specifically enforceable. But there is no fraud, and no reason for a court of equity to prevent the revocation of a will from having its ordinary effect, unless each testator had reason to know that the agreement would bind him or her in this manner. We may specifically enforce only those aspects of an agreement to make wills which both parties much more probably than not understood to be the consequences of that agreement. Based on the evidence presented, we do not find it so highly probable that Charles, Sr., and Lillian understood that once either of them took under the other's will, the ultimate disposition of the property stated in the 1959 wills could not be changed. From Martin's testimony, it appears that Charles initially wanted to effect such a result, but Lillian did not. While attorney Biggs' intentions in preparing the wills are not decisive, his views about irrevocable wills are relevant, to the extent he communicated them to Mr. and Mrs. Willbanks, in determining what they understood themselves to be doing. See Gill v. Hewitt, 244 Or. 242, 244, 417 P.2d 399 (1966) (finding no contract despite mutual reciprocal wills when attorney testified that he advised against joint will because I have an aversion to wills of that type because it might be construed as irrevocable); Holman et al v. Lutz et al, 132 Or. 185, 199, 211, 282 P. 241, 284 P. 825 (1930), overruled on other grounds, State ex rel Madden v. Crawford, 207 Or. 76, 91, 295 P.2d 174 (1956) (finding no contract where, inter alia, attorney did not discuss with testators any relationship of any kind between the two wills and did not prepare any writing evidencing the contract). Were the burden of persuasion reversed, we could not say it is much more probable than not that the testators did not understand that each was relinquishing his or her right to change the disposition of property once the benefits of the spouse's will were received; Martin's testimony too incompletely reveals what Biggs told them, and cannot inform us whether, when they returned, they executed their wills in acquiescence to his policy against irrevocable testaments, or in spite of it. Considering Martin's testimony as a whole, it is more likely than not that Biggs told the Willbanks of his policy, but the question is a close one. We agree with the Court of Appeals that Biggs' advice against a will that couldn't be broken could support an inference that the parties merely decided to rely on an oral agreement and not put explicit contractual language in the wills themselves. 70 Or. App. at 435 n. 4. But we find nothing to indicate this is much more probable than the equally reasonable inference that once they learned of his policy, they decided to go along with it. Similarly, by her statement that she would go along with Charles, Sr., Lillian could have meant at least two different things. She could have meant that, in exchange for his agreement to cut Charles, Jr., out of the will, she acquiesced in her husband's desire to treat plaintiff and LaVonne equally, and to make that disposition irrevocable after either Charles, Sr., or Lillian died. But she could also have meant only that she would go along for the time being, contemplating that she might well survive him and change her will after that. Indeed, Lillian, whom the witnesses described as more forceful and dominant than her husband, did change her will to favor LaVonne only two months after her husband's death. Had she thought she had entered into a contract not to do so, this would mean that she was willing to break her promise to her husband in the few short weeks following his death. To us that seems improbable. Plaintiff has not persuaded us that the first interpretation of her remark is the much more likely inference. We hold that a person who seeks specific performance of a contract to make mutual reciprocal wills, allegedly entered into before the effective date of ORS 112.270, must show that it is much more probable than not that the parties to the alleged contract understood that the survivor, after taking property pursuant to the will of the first testator to die, would not be able to affect the disposition of that property by revoking the mutual reciprocal will. Plaintiff has not proven the existence of a specifically enforceable contract by clear and convincing evidence, because we cannot find that it was much more probable than not that Mr. and Mrs. Willbanks manifested the essential mutual assent necessary to the making of a contract. See Nieminen v. Pitzer, 281 Or. 53, 57, 573 P.2d 1227 (1978); Kabil Development Corp. v. Mignot, 279 Or. 151, 153, 566 P.2d 505 (1977). Because the plaintiff did not establish by clear and convincing evidence the existence of the contract which he sought to enforce specifically, the judgments of the trial court and the Court of Appeals were incorrect, and we need not decide whether the action was barred by the statute of limitations. Reversed.