Court Opinion

ID: 9573623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:57:16.399605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:08.125672
License: Public Domain

*367Benham, Justice,
dissenting.
Because the majority opinion in this case ignores the fraud upon the court in which the will in this case originated and approves of the manufacture of a valid will from a collection of invalid parts, I must dissent.
The trial court granted caveators summary judgment and denied probate because the will did not meet the requirement imposed by OCGA § 53-4-20 (b) that it be attested to by two persons. The will had signatures of two purported attesting witnesses, Cooper and Meehan. The will also contained a self-proving clause with the signatures of Tidwell, Cooper, and Riggs, which signatures were purported to have been notarized by Capallo. Based on undisputed evidence, however, the trial court recognized that Meehan and Riggs had neither witnessed Tidwell signing the will nor even met her; that Cooper did witness Tidwell signing the will; that Capallo, the notary, did not notarize the signatures of Cooper, Meehan, or Riggs anywhere on the document, or notarize Tidwell’s signature to the will, but did notarize Tidwell’s signature on the self-proving clause. Based on those facts, the trial court properly concluded that there was only one attesting witness, contrary to the requirements of OCGA § 53-4-20 (b), and denied probate.
The majority opinion ignores the fraud infecting almost every part of the document offered for probate. Two of the purported witnesses had never met the testatrix, and the single genuine attesting witness admitted she procured those fraudulent signatures. The notary specifically disclaimed the accuracy of the self-proving affidavit on which the majority relies to create a second attesting witness, and the record establishes that the affidavit was altered after the notary signed it. The majority’s approach to this case permits the cobbling together of bits and pieces of a document, ignoring the fraud involved in its execution, relying on hearsay, and creating a valid will out of pieces as to which there is no certainty of validity from the evidence. In none of the cases cited by the majority were the courts presented with fraud such as purported attesting witnesses who had never even met the testatrix and alterations to a notary’s jurat after the notary has signed and affixed a seal, all of which occurred in this case.
Furthermore, the suggestion of the majority that whether the will was properly executed and attested to are questions of fact misses the mark. The facts of who signed where and when are not at issue in this case, only whether the document as it was executed is a valid will, which is a question of law, not fact.
The majority’s reversal of the well-reasoned decision of the trial court establishes a new low-water mark for appellate consideration of wills, approving the fabrication of a will from fraud-riddled bits *368and pieces. Because the decision in this case encourages deception perpetrated on the courts and invents questions of fact where none exist, I dissent.
Decided November 17, 2003.
Glen A. Cheney, DuAnn C. Davis, for appellant.
Cheney & Cheney, Curtis V. Cheney, Jr., for appellees.