Court Opinion

ID: 9634552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:16:53.963174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:05.209898
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting in part.
I am in full accord with the majority’s meticulous treatment of the “undue influence” issue, but I part company on its decision concerning the in terrorem clauses.
On April 24, 1975, when Mrs. Dutrow added the challenged clauses to the testamentary instruments, enforcement of in terrorem clauses was perfectly in keeping with the public policy *190of this state, as it was at the time of the testator’s death in 1977. As the Court acknowledges, ante at 187, that policy was to give effect to such clauses where, as here, the instrument was contested on the ground of undue influence. See Alper v. Alper, 2 N.J. 105, 112-13 (1949); Provident Trust Co. v. Osborne, 133 N.J.Eq. 518, 521 (Ch.1943). See also In re Estate of Badenhop, 61 N.J.Super. 526, 534-35 (Cty.Ct.1960). As Alper instructs us, an in terrorem clause is
a reasonable safeguard against attempted overthrow of the testamentary dispositions by a disappointed heir, striving for an undue advantage, and a device to lessen the wastage of the estate in litigation and the chance of increasing family animosities by besmirching the reputation of the testator when he is no longer alive to defend himself and to discourage the contesting of wills as a means of coercing a settlement. [2 N.J. at 112.]
Mrs. Dutrow’s intentions in insisting on such a provision comported entirely with the judicially-declared public policy as of the time she made her testamentary dispositions and as of the time of her death.
Instead of honoring the testator’s manifest wishes, however, the court looks for guidance to a statute not effective until a year after her death. N.J.S.A. 3A:2A-32 renders in terrorem clauses in wills unenforceable if there exists probable cause for a will contest:
A provision in a will purporting to penalize any interested person for contesting the will or instituting other proceedings relating to the estate is unenforceable if probable cause exists for instituting proceedings. [N.J.S.A. 3A:2A-32 (Supp.1981).] 1
The majority bows to this “legislative handling’’ of the subject as an aid in the “judicial quest for the important societal values that are the constituent elements of the common law * * * .” Quite apart from the tardy surfacing of this newly recognized public policy is the shaky foundation upon which it rests. The Legislature, clearly in error (as forthrightly conceded by plaintiffs), believed that N.J.S.A. 3A:2A-32 codifies existing New Jersey case law on the subject. See Statement of Assembly *191Comm, on Judiciary, Law, Public Safety and Defense, Assembly Doc. No. 1717, L.1977, c. 412 (1977).2 As demonstrated above, the statute does no such thing. It runs directly contrary to the case law.
We may view an in terrorem clause in a less charitable fashion than did the Alper court, perhaps as a device to wreak revenge on a disgruntled object of one’s testamentary disposition. We may see such clauses as representing the most disagreeable impulses of a testator. They may lay bare one’s mean, uncharitable, impervious, suspicious, hostile, downright churlish nature — and then some. I do not suggest that Mrs. Dutrow manifested any of those characteristics, but I do suggest that testators are allowed to exhibit all of them, and worse, without fear that a court will disregard their final wishes.
In keeping with both the testator’s unambiguously-declared intent and the public policy of this state at the time of her death, I would give effect to the in terrorem clauses.
For reversal — Justices SULLIVAN, PASHMAN, CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER and HANDLER — 5.
For affirmance — None.

I agree with the majority, ante at 188, that where it is applicable, the statute should affect trust instruments as well as wills.

The text of this statement appears in its entirety as an introduction to the new Decedents’ Estates Code, immediately preceding the definitional section, N.J.S.A. 3A:2A — 1 (Supp.1981).