Opinion ID: 2630548
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Contestants Established the Basic Facts of the Presumption

Text: ¶ 22 First, to invoke the presumption a contestant must establish the existence of a confidential relationship between the will maker and another, stronger party. A confidential relationship is a fiduciary relationship and exists whenever trust and confidence are placed by one person in the integrity and fidelity of another. [24] The record contains ample proof that a confidential relationship existed between Elaine and her mother. Mrs. Holcomb appointed Elaine as her attorney in fact as early as 1972 and gave Elaine check-writing privileges on her bank account. After her 1990 stroke, Mrs. Holcomb moved to Elaine's house in Woodward where Elaine became her mother's primary caretaker, providing directly or indirectly for her mother's physical needs and taking care of her personal, legal, and financial affairs. The record clearly shows that this relationship continued until Mrs. Holcomb's death in May 1995. ¶ 23 Second, a contestant must establish that the stronger party participated in the procurement or preparation of the decedent's will. [25] The participation that will taint a will must be active participation in the substance of the testamentary act and not just participation in formal matters undertaken at the direction of the will maker. [26] ¶ 24 Mrs. Holcomb was 91 years old when she was left paralyzed and bedridden by a stroke. Her vision and hearing were both significantly impaired. She was completely dependent upon Elaine for her physical needs, including food, shelter, clothing, personal hygiene, the administration of pain medication, and medical and/or nursing attention. Elaine shopped for her mother, wrote her checks, prepared records for the preparation of her tax returns, sent gifts on her behalf, and received her telephone calls and visitors. Elaine had the ability to control the entertainment her mother enjoyed as well as her receipt of news and other information. Mrs. Holcomb died in May 1995 at the age of 96. She lived the last five years of her life in a single bedroom of Elaine's house, apparently never well enough to leave that room except to go to the hospital. ¶ 25 Elaine had physical control of her mother's monthly income. She cashed her mother's social security and royalty checks each month, spent the money (approximately $85,000 over five years), and kept no records from which an accounting could be had. Elaine also had check-writing privileges on her mother's checking account and wrote checks over the five years totaling at least $190,000. Some of the checks went to pay for Elaine's personal and household expenses. Elaine repeatedly wrote checks in excess of the account's balance, incurring significant overdraft charges. ¶ 26 Elaine was actively involved in her mother's legal affairs. Elaine repeatedly consulted with Don Gaston, her mother's attorney, without Mrs. Holcomb's participation in the consultation. Mrs. Holcomb never initiated her meetings with Mr. Gaston despite the testimony of Elaine's children that their grandmother was able to and often did converse by telephone. On at least two and possibly three occasions the attorney drafted documents for Mrs. Holcomb's execution at Elaine's direction without first consulting with Mrs. Holcomb. In each such case, Elaine and/or one of her children benefited from the transaction. ¶ 27 Mr. Gaston also came to represent Elaine sometime during the five-year period he represented her mother and did not disclose this to Mrs. Holcomb. The attorney's time records and billing statements relating to Mrs. Holcomb's legal matters treat Elaine and her mother interchangeably as the client, making it difficult to tell who the client actually was and what was being done for whom. The attorney testified to more than one instance where legal services were performed for Elaine but billed to her mother. Although Elaine paid most of her personal expenses out of her mother's checking account, she paid for all the legal services rendered to her mother with one exception out of her own checking account. ¶ 28 Contestants introduced evidence that Elaine had the kind of personality that could easily have come to dominate Mrs. Holcomb given her frail and dependent condition. Even they, who were not physically compromised and under Elaine's care, found her to be aggressive, intimidating, controlling and manipulative, a dominant personality whom it was useless to oppose. Each felt that he (or she) had a close relationship with Mrs. Holcomb prior to her stroke, providing examples of the ways in which they helped her with her household and personal chores or spent time with her in other ways. Once Mrs. Holcomb was ensconced in Elaine's home, contestants found it increasingly difficult to visit with her without interference from Elaine or one of her children and they came to feel unwelcome in Elaine's house. They testified that Elaine often argued with and denigrated Marc in front of Mrs. Holcomb. Marc and Laura Grace visited their mother practically every weekend for the five years she lived with Elaine, sometimes traveling long distances, yet Mrs. Holcomb commented to a distant relative in early 1995 that she rarely saw Marc and Laura Grace. ¶ 29 All of these circumstances raise the inference that Elaine was active in the procurement or preparation of the will in contest. Mrs. Holcomb's frail physical condition, her complete dependence on Elaine for the necessities of life, and contestants' testimony that Elaine exercised control over every aspect of her mother's life in a way that excluded them from participating in decisions affecting Mrs. Holcomb gave Elaine the opportunity to abuse the position of confidence she held with her mother. Viewed in the context of these conditions, Elaine's handling of her mother's financial affairs gives credence to the contestants' contention that Mrs. Holcomb's actions were not in fact her own. Elaine's expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars in cash without maintaining any records to account for it is unconscionable under the circumstances. No one who does such a thing can reasonably expect others to accept without explanation that it was spent only as directed by an elderly, ill, bedridden woman. Elaine's handling of the checking account also raises suspicion that it was she and not her mother who controlled the outflow from that account. Not only were funds from that account used in ways that benefited Elaine personally, but the account itself was mismanaged to such an extent that the Bank had to issue a warning that the account was being rapidly depleted. Mrs. Holcomb was made aware of the Bank's warning and, about that time, came to believe that she needed to sell her home in Buffalo in order to remain financially afloat. Yet she assigned to Elaine and Heidi an $80,000 inheritance she had received. There was no evidence that Mrs. Holcomb treated her financial well-being so cavalierly before the stroke left her without the ability to physically control her own financial affairs. It is hence a fair inference that Elaine was substituting her own decisions for those of her mother and doing so for her own financial benefit. ¶ 30 Elaine's involvement in her mother's legal affairs is even stronger circumstantial evidence that she was active in the procurement or preparation of the will in contest. Elaine met many times over the years with Mrs. Holcomb's attorney to discuss her mother's legal affairs without the participation of Mrs. Holcomb. Several times this led to the drafting of instruments  including at least one earlier will  for Mrs. Holcomb's execution on Elaine's instructions without the attorney first consulting with Mrs. Holcomb. The attorney's time records show that Elaine met with him close in time to the events in controversy and that Mrs. Holcomb was not included in the consultation. ¶ 31 Although there is no direct proof of Elaine's active participation in the procurement or preparation of her mother's will, the outlined factors constitute a sufficient convergence of circumstances to justify shifting to the will's proponent the burden of producing evidence of the nonexistence of undue influence. B.