Court Opinion

ID: 9519762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:24:33.834996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:51.263816
License: Public Domain

Gehl, J.
(dissenting in part). The majority say that Attorney Meissner should have been permitted to testify as to the execution of the prior wills; that the privilege afforded by sec. 325.22, Stats., must be deemed to have been waived by testator’s act of having the attorney subscribe as an attesting witness. McMaster v. Scriven, 85 Wis. 162, 55 N. W. 149, is cited. That case recognizes the rule declared in other cases decided by this court that in a contest upon a will an attorney who has prepared the will and attests its execution should, for reasons of public policy, be permitted to disclose the circumstances attending and the fact of its execution. The proper administration of justice requires that he be allowed to testify in order that the real will of the testator may be carried out according to his intention and as expressed in the instrument offered for probate.
*324In none of the cases considered by this court, and where the testimony of an attorney who had drawn and attested the execution of a prior will had been received, does it appear that objection was made to the offer of his testimony. In those cases the issue was whether the will offered for probate was the result of undue influence and the trial was upon that issue. Wé have not yet reached that issue in this case nor had the trial court. Before the contestant may be heard to challenge the propounded will he must make a satisfactory showing by competent proof that he was named as a beneficiary in a prior will. Estate of Buffington, 249 Wis. 172, 23 N. W. (2d) 517. Holty offered as proof of his interest the testimony of Attorney Meissner that he had prepared and attested the execution of the prior wills and demanded that Mr. Meissner produce them.
Thus, the real question now before the court is whether in a proceeding brought by one who has not otherwise shown an interest in the estate the waiver of privilege extends to an attorney who had prepared and attested the execution of wills previously revoked by the testator.
One who makes a will knows that to make it effective it must be published; in fact, he does it for that purpose. He is presumed to know, also, that those whom he requests to attest the execution of the will, will be called upon to give testimony as to its execution. Will of Downing, 118 Wis. 581, 95 N. W. 876; Will of Hunt, 122 Wis. 460, 100 N. W. 874. That is the basis for the rule which permits a subscribing witness, be he a layman or the testator’s attorney, to testify as to the circumstances surrounding execution of the will offered for probate.
The reason for permitting disclosure disappears, however, when the testator revokes the will. There is then nothing which requires publication. By the act of revocation he withdraws the waiver of privilege. Indeed, he may have revoked the will for the particular purpose of closing the mouth of his attorney. It is not too difficult to imagine a situation in which a person might at one time have been disposed to make *325another his beneficiary. Subsequently, for reasons good or fanciful, but satisfactory to him, his attitude toward the other person is changed and he decides to cut off the other person and that it be done without the knowledge of the other even after the testator’s death, for which he may also have reason —good or fanciful, but satisfactory to him. Should his attorney under those circumstances be permitted to violate the confidence of his client? Certainly he should not, at least until after the subsequent will has been made ineffective and it becomes necessary to ascertain the contents of and the circumstances attending the execution of the prior instrument, or until the dissatisfied person has established his right to attack a later will.
It must not be overlooked that we are not dealing here with a will contest as was the fact in some of the cases cited by the majority. We have here nothing except the preliminary question whether the objector’s status is such as to entitle him to challenge the instrument offered. If and when he has established such status he may proceed with his attack. Then and not until then does the rule apply that former wills containing provisions inconsistent or consistent with those of the will in contest may be received in evidence. It is then that the contents of former wills may be material.
I am unable to subscribe to a declaration that a stranger to the testator, one who would not take under the laws of intestacy, may proceed upon a “fishing expedition” and, by permitting a testator’s attorney to violate the confidence of his client, to establish the' possibility that he was named as a beneficiary in an earlier will and thereby qualify himself to challenge the instrument offered for probate.
It is urged that, although the attorney may be precluded from testifying as to his conversation with the deceased testator, he still should be permitted or required to produce the paper itself; that the revoked will speaks for itself. The will is the written expression of the testator’s communication to his attorney. It is “in spirit and effect the communication from the client to the attorney!” In re Cunnion’s Will, 135 *326App. Div. 864, 868, 120 N. Y. Supp. 266, “if the instrument in question was not a communication from his client, it was ‘the result of the communication’ and the ‘reason and spirit’ of the situation requires him to protect that communication by not disclosing it by producing the instrument for the benefit of those who seek to destroy the effect of his client’s later testamentary efforts.” In re Hurin, 59 Ohio App. 82, 84, 17 N. E. (2d) 287.
It appears to me that the majority is more concerned with the rights and hopes of those who seek the property of a decedent than it is with the right of one to dispose of his property at his death as he chooses and with his right to assume that he may communicate freely with his attorney without fear of disclosure.
I do not disagree with the majority that a new trial should be had. It is possible that the contestant has competent proof to establish his right to contest the propounded will. The record does not disclose that he was given opportunity to offer it. I am unable to agree with the majority that Mr. Meissner should be required to testify or to produce documents as requested by the objector.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Brown joins in this dissent.