Facts
- Mary A. Johnston executed a will creating a residuary testamentary trust naming First Commercial Trust Company as trustee.
- The trust provided a life benefit for Johnston’s friend, Flournoy Adkins, including income for life and permissible invasion of principal for his care.
- The will purported to dispose of the remainder at Adkins’s death by naming “Spencer, Jr.” and “his children,” but the identification of remainder beneficiaries was disputed and was asserted to reflect a drafting or clerical error.
- After Adkins died, uncertainty arose over distribution of the trust corpus, particularly certain personal property.
- Jeanne W. Burnett, an heir, argued that because the will did not validly dispose of the disputed property upon termination of the life interest, that property should pass by intestate succession.
- The trustee filed an action seeking construction of the will and authority to use extrinsic evidence to establish the testatrix’s intended remainder beneficiaries.
Issues
- Whether the will was ambiguous regarding disposition of trust property at the life beneficiary’s death, permitting admission of extrinsic (parol) evidence of intent.
- Whether a court may use parol evidence to correct an alleged clerical or scrivener’s error that would effectively reform the will’s designation of remainder beneficiaries.
- Whether property not effectively disposed of by the will at the life beneficiary’s death passes by intestate succession.
Decision
- The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
- The court held the will was not ambiguous on its face concerning disposition, so parol evidence was inadmissible to determine or correct testamentary intent.
- The chancery court erred by admitting testimony from the drafting attorney and others to “fix” the asserted clerical error in beneficiary identification.
- Because the will, construed without extrinsic evidence, failed to validly dispose of the disputed property at the termination of the life interest, that property passed by intestate succession.
Legal Principles
- A testator’s intent is determined from the four corners of the will, giving the language its plain and ordinary meaning.
- Extrinsic (parol) evidence is inadmissible to vary, contradict, add to, or supply testamentary terms unless the will is ambiguous.
- Courts may not reform a will based on alleged mistake or scrivener’s error when the language of the executed instrument is otherwise clear.
- If a will does not effectively dispose of property after proper construction, the undisposed property passes under intestate succession statutes rather than by judicial revision of the will.
Conclusion
The court enforced a strict four-corners approach to will construction, rejecting parol evidence offered to correct an alleged drafting mistake, and held that any trust property not effectively disposed of by the will upon the life beneficiary’s death must pass by intestate succession.