Court Opinion

ID: 9528222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:38:33.516127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:36.013724
License: Public Domain

ROONEY, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion charts a new path in Wyoming for determination of the validity of a will. In doing so, it disregards specific statutory formal requirements of a valid will. I cannot agree therewith.
Former § 2-4-104, W.S.1977 was in effect at the time pertinent to the will here in question.1 It set forth the requirements for a valid will:
“All wills to be valid must be in writing, or typewritten, witnessed by two (2) competent witnesses, and signed by the testator or by some person in his presence and by his express direction, and if the witnesses are competent at the time of attesting the execution of the will, their subsequent incompetency, from whatever cause it may arise, shall not prevent the probate and allowance of the will. No subscribing witness to any will can derive any benefit therefrom unless there be two (2) disinterested and competent witnesses to the same, but if without a will such witness would be entitled to any portion of the testator’s estate, such witness may still receive such portion to the extent and value of the amount devised.”
Former § 2-4-108, W.S.1977 (quoted in the majority opinion) provided that former § 2-4-104, W.S.1977 would not apply to holographic wills.
But the reason for the non-applicability is of prime importance to the issue in this case. The necessity of attesting witnesses is dispensed with when the will is in the handwriting of the deceased because the handwriting itself is a guarantee against forgery.2
“The recognition given such an instrument as a valid testamentary instrument despite the lack of compliance with the formality of attestation is ascribed to the fact that a successful counterfeit of another’s handwriting is exceedingly difficult, and that therefore the requirement that it be in the testator’s handwriting would afford protection against a forgery. 4 * *” 79 Am.Jur.2d Wills, § 702, p. 782.
The majority opinion accepts the dissection and reconstruction of this will as a proper revocation of part of it by the testator. It is acknowledged that the where*1363abouts of the will was unknown from the time it was made on December 28, 1977 until it was placed in a safety deposit box at the bank on February 29, 1980. The majority opinion concludes that during this period “no one had access to the will other than Ms. Seeley.” The only evidence for such a conclusion was the following testimony of one of the testator’s daughters, Darlene, who was one of the principal beneficiaries of the will:
“Q. Do you know if anyone had access to that document other than your mother?
“A. Nobody did.”
and
“Q. Mrs. Speidel, do you know who took the paragraph out of the middle of that Petitioner’s Exhibit No. 1?
“A. I didn’t see her do it, but, Mother.
“Q. How do you know that?
“A. That’s just her hand written will and nobody else had access to it. Nobody could have.”
The opinion given by Darlene was not supported by any facts, and a more accurate description of the situation was probably that given by another daughter, Arlene:
“Q. Did she have a safe place at home to keep it?
“A. Well, she had several places that she would put things, and I assumed that she either carried it in her purse or did have it locked away at home.” (Emphasis added.)
The majority opinion accepts the proposition that the deletion was made by the testator from circumstances other than the protective formalities required by law. If testator had evidenced her intention to make the change by noting it in her handwriting on the instrument or otherwise, the requirements of the statute would have been met. An interlineation or an obliteration in the handwriting of the testator would satisfy the means set forth by statute to prevent forgery or fraud. But this was not done here.
If this had been other than a holographic will, the change or partial revocation would need to be accomplished with the statutory protective formalities. The same is true of a holographic will.
“An addition to, or alteration of, a will does not operate to revoke it, unless made animo revocandi, and that intention, to be effectual, must be evinced in the mode prescribed by the statute. Therefore, alterations and additions will not work a revocation of a will unless made with all the formalities necessary to the execution of the will; and, if alterations are done without such formalities, the original instrument remains in force. On the other hand, a will, parts of which have been stricken, may be republished and reexe-cuted as a new will which will revoke the original will.” (Footnotes omitted.) 95 C.J.S. Wills, § 282, pp. 66-67.
The document here presented for probate was not the same instrument which was signed by the testator. It was not changed or partially revoked in her handwriting. There is nothing in her handwriting to reflect the change to have been pursuant to her intention. The majority opinion substitutes for the statutory-protective requirement a finding from circumstances that she intended the changes. The precedent results that a scratch-out, obliteration, cutout and repasting, or other type of change or partial revocation of a non-holographic will originally attested by witnesses is a proper instrument for probate — even without the attesting formalities to the change or revocation as required by statute.
In determining the propriety of a will for probate, we are not construing a contract. We are not looking for the testator’s intent (once admitted to probate, such may be necessary). Any inquiry should be to ascertain if statutory requirements have been met. They were not here met.
A will found in a purse or drawer or some other place by a relative of a testator who feels she was not properly provided for therein should not be subject to surreptitious change. The statutory protection against such is insistence that the change be properly attested to by qualified witnesses with reference to the usual wills, and that they be properly verified through a hand*1364written notation or indication with reference to holographic wills. See In Re Wilson’s Estate, Wyo., 397 P.2d 805 (1964); In Re Towle’s Estate, 14 Cal.2d 261, 93 P.2d 555, 124 A.L.R. 624 (1939). This was not here done. I would reverse with directions to refuse to admit the proffered will to probate.

. Similar provisions are now in § 2-6-112, W.S.1977.

. Wyoming is not one of those states which follows a theory derived from the French Napoleonic Code and which recognizes a holographic will as a distinct type of will with certain prescribed formalities for its execution.