Opinion ID: 1887897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: was the 1996 last will and testament of eloise dabney the product of fraud or misrepresentation?

Text: ¶ 26. In the case sub judice, there were instances of both fraud in the execution of a will and misrepresentation. Eloise Dabney informed David Dabney that she wanted to execute a new will and that he should call Leo Boolos. She indicated to Boolos that she wanted a new will drawn up that would leave Freddie Hataway out of her will. Boolos prepared the will. [1] ¶ 27. Mrs. Dabney told Boolos to create a codicil to the will that would leave Freddie out. However, Boolos informed Mrs. Dabney ... you have so many codicils, maybe it would be better if we just redrafted the whole thing from top to bottom. Boolos agreed that he would copy the previous will with the exception to provisions regarding Freddie. According to Mrs. Dabney's request, the exclusion of Freddie was the only change that should be made to the will. In contrast to this request, Boolos did more than copy the old provisions of the will. He made several subsequent changes to the will that Mrs. Dabney did not authorize. First, Boolos added a provision in the will that left $5,000 to Lillie Mae Thomas, the Dabney's maid. However, Boolos never testified that he was informed to add Lillie to the new will. When asked if Mrs. Dabney told him to make the addition, he said, she may have.... Boolos also testified that he knew Mrs. Dabney wanted the will to be exactly the same, with the exception of the exclusion of Freddie. Second, another change made to the new will concerned Fred Dabney. [2] Boolos decided to leave Fred out of this 1996 will. Boolos again testified that Mrs. Dabney had not said anything to him concerning Fred. Id. Boolos testified that he felt that Mrs. Dabney intended to leave Fred out. Id. Third, there had been a sofa and end tables mentioned in the previous will; however, they were both excluded from the new 1996 will. Boolos testified that he did not know whether he made an error or whether he excluded these items on purpose. Finally, Freddie's daughters were provided for in the previous wills. Mrs. Dabney had left silver pieces to one of Freddie's daughters and to one of Eloise's daughters. The new 1996 will that Boolos prepared gave David Dabney the sole authority to leave the silver to one of the granddaughters, not to both of them. When asked how this change came about, Boolos testified that, I don't remember. According to Boolos's testimony, approximately four unauthorized changes were made to Mrs. Dabney's original will. ¶ 28. Fraud in the execution of a will exists when there has been a misrepresentation to the testator about the nature or content of the will. In re Estate of Vick, 557 So.2d at 767. As mentioned above, there were several changes made in the 1996 will of which Mrs. Dabney was unaware. David Dabney picked up the will from Boolos and took it to his mother. When Mrs. Dabney received the new will, she only read the provisions that had to do with Freddie. She scanned the rest of it. Mrs. Dabney asked David, Is this the will I wanted? David told her that it was. David testified that he assumed everything in the will, with the exception of Freddie's provisions, was the same as the previous will. He also testified that his mother assumed the same thing. According to this testimony, Mrs. Dabney was mistaken as to the contents of her will. She believed that everything was the same except for the provisions pertaining to Freddie. She was never made aware, by David or by Leo, that several additional changes had been made. Again, Boolos had agreed to copy the provisions of the previous will. Therefore, Mrs. Dabney was under the mistaken impression that both wills were the same. She signed the 1996 will under the misrepresentation as to the contents of the will. As the lower court held, the 1996 will was appropriately held invalid because it was a product of fraud in the execution of a will.