## Facts

- Jessie Anna Stange executed a handwritten will stating it was her will and directing care for her cats, identified as “numbering ten, and any more that may come along.”
- The will gave Leo Hahn the use of Stange’s San Antonio house and car and contemplated funding cat care and property expenses through specified income sources, including rent from Stange’s Birmingham, Alabama rental property.
- The will tied Hahn’s use of the property to caring for the cats and also directed that, after Hahn’s use, her Alabama and Texas estates go to charitable animal-related beneficiaries.
- After Stange’s death, Hahn did not move into the house or take possession of the cats.
- Evidence offered to show the cats’ continued existence included testimony that a witness saw a black cat at the property; the probate court found this insufficient to prove any of Stange’s cats were alive and identifiable.
- The probate court received evidence of Hahn’s health problems and found he was unable to perform the caretaker role contemplated by the will.
- The independent administrator filed a declaratory-judgment action to determine whether the will created a valid pet trust and whether Hahn was a beneficiary.
- The probate court declared that a pet trust was created but failed for lack of legally ascertainable beneficiaries and that Hahn was not a beneficiary; it ordered the estate to pass under the residuary provisions.
- Hahn appealed, challenging the trust-failure ruling and the exclusion of testimony from Roberta Ottmers about Stange’s intent.

## Issues

1. Whether the probate court erred by concluding that the will’s pet trust failed because the intended animal beneficiaries were not ascertainable.
2. Whether the probate court erred by excluding extrinsic testimony regarding the testator’s intent and the meaning of the will.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the probate court’s declaratory judgment.
- The court held the evidence supported the finding that no identifiable surviving beneficiary cats were proven, so the pet trust failed for lack of ascertainable beneficiaries.
- The court held Hahn was not entitled to take as a beneficiary because the will framed his use of property as conditional on performing the caretaking purpose, which the probate court found he could not perform.
- The court upheld the exclusion of Ottmers’s testimony as improper extrinsic evidence to change an unambiguous will; alternatively, any error was harmless because the trust failed on independent grounds.
- The estate property therefore passed under the will’s residuary dispositions rather than to Hahn through the failed pet trust arrangement.

## Legal Principles

- A trust for the care of specific animals requires sufficiently definite, ascertainable beneficiaries or trust objects; absent proof that the identified animals exist and are identifiable, the trust fails.
- A person given use of property to carry out a stated testamentary purpose may hold only a conditional, purpose-linked interest rather than an independent gift; inability to perform the purpose can defeat the claimed beneficial interest.
- When a will is unambiguous, extrinsic evidence of intent is generally inadmissible to vary or contradict its terms.
- Exclusion of intent evidence is not reversible if any assumed error is harmless because the judgment rests on dispositive, independent findings.
- When a particular trust or devise fails, the affected property passes under the will’s residuary clause if applicable.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a probate judgment that the will’s cat-care arrangement failed as an enforceable trust because no ascertainable beneficiary animals were proven and the caretaker’s use of property was conditional on fulfilling the caretaking purpose; the court also upheld exclusion of extrinsic intent testimony and allowed the property to pass under the residuary provisions.


Hahn v. Estate of Stange, No. 04-07-00253-CV, 2008 Tex. App. LEXIS 1027 (Tex. App.—San Antonio Feb. 13, 2008)