## Facts

- Wayne Andersen and his wife created a family trust in 1992 naming their children, Stephen Andersen and Kathleen Brandt, as the sole remainder beneficiaries after both parents’ deaths.
- After the wife’s death in 1993, Wayne became the surviving trustor and trustee.
- Wayne suffered a stroke in 2003 and thereafter executed trust amendments in 2003 and 2004 that substantially changed the dispositive plan, including leaving a 60% portion of his estate to his long-term partner, Pauline Hunt, with the balance to family members.
- Wayne also made nontrust transfers benefiting Pauline, including placing assets into joint tenancy accounts with her and changing a life insurance beneficiary designation.
- After Wayne’s death in 2006, Stephen and Kathleen filed a probate proceeding challenging the amendments and seeking recovery of assets transferred outside the trust.
- The probate court bifurcated the matter and, after trial, found Wayne lacked capacity and that Pauline exerted undue influence as to the trust amendments and certain nontrust transfers; it invalidated the amendments and certain nontrust transactions and removed Pauline as trustee.
- Pauline appealed.

## Issues

1. What mental-capacity standard governs execution of trust amendments that are will-like in content and complexity: the general decisionmaking capacity framework in Probate Code sections 810–812, or the testamentary-capacity standard in Probate Code section 6100.5?
2. Whether substantial evidence supported invalidating the 2003 and 2004 trust amendments for lack of capacity or undue influence under the correct standard.
3. Whether substantial evidence supported invalidating the joint tenancy account transactions and life insurance beneficiary change for lack of capacity and/or undue influence.
4. Whether laches barred the beneficiaries’ claims.
5. Whether removal of Pauline as trustee was proper.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal held the probate court used an incorrect legal standard by treating Probate Code sections 810–812 as imposing a single, higher “contractual” capacity threshold for the trust amendments.
- The court explained that sections 810–812 require an act-specific capacity analysis; for will-like trust amendments, the substantive level of capacity is the testamentary standard described in section 6100.5, applied through section 811’s correlation requirement.
- Applying the proper standard, the court reversed the invalidation of the 2003 and 2004 trust amendments (finding insufficient evidence of lack of testamentary capacity or undue influence as to those amendments).
- The court affirmed the determinations invalidating certain joint tenancy and life insurance beneficiary transactions for lack of capacity.
- The judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part.

## Legal Principles

- Probate Code sections 810–812 do not establish a single uniform “contractual capacity” test; capacity depends on the specific act and the person’s ability to understand and appreciate the consequences of that act.
- A finding of incapacity under sections 810–812 must be supported by (a) evidence of a deficit in a statutorily identified mental function and (b) evidence linking that deficit to the decision or act at issue (act-specific correlation).
- Although section 6100.5 directly governs wills, its testamentary-capacity standard supplies the operative level of mental functioning for trust amendments that are analogous to wills or codicils in content and complexity, applied within the sections 810–812 framework via section 811.
- A person may possess sufficient testamentary capacity to execute a will-like dispositive instrument yet lack capacity for more complex financial transactions such as certain account restructurings or beneficiary changes.

## Conclusion

The court held that will-like trust amendments must be evaluated under an act-specific capacity framework that uses the testamentary-capacity standard, reversing the order invalidating the trust amendments while affirming the invalidation of certain nontrust transfers for lack of capacity and otherwise affirming in part and reversing in part.


Andersen v. Hunt, 196 Cal. App. 4th 722 (Ct. App. 2011)