## Facts

- Alexandra Turner executed a will leaving her entire estate to her niece.
- As Turner’s mental capacity declined, a conservatorship was established and Carlyle Hall, a long-time friend, was appointed conservator.
- Hall consulted attorney Lawrence Kalfayan about revising Turner’s estate plan to leave Hall “slightly more than half” of the estate and the niece “slightly less than half.”
- Kalfayan drafted proposed wills consistent with those general instructions.
- Because Turner was under a conservatorship, a significant testamentary change required probate-court approval.
- Over roughly three years, Kalfayan submitted multiple proposed versions to the probate court, but Turner died before any new will was executed and approved.
- Turner’s original will controlled at death; the niece inherited the entire estate and Hall received nothing.
- Hall sued Kalfayan for legal malpractice as an intended beneficiary, alleging negligent failure to obtain timely approval and execution of the revised will.

## Issues

1. Whether an estate-planning attorney owes a duty of care to a nonclient would-be beneficiary when the alleged negligence is failure to obtain court approval and execution of a conservatee’s proposed new will before death.
2. Whether the intended-beneficiary exception to the privity rule applies when the asserted gift was contingent on future court approval that never occurred.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed dismissal of Hall’s complaint.
- The court held Kalfayan owed no duty of care to Hall as a nonclient.
- Hall’s claimed expectancy was too contingent and uncertain because it depended on both Turner’s final testamentary intent and discretionary court approval that did not occur.
- Recognizing a duty to Hall would risk interfering with the attorney’s primary obligations to the conservatee and to statutory conservatorship protections (including capacity and undue-influence concerns).

## Legal Principles

- Legal malpractice liability generally requires a duty of care; absent privity, duty to a nonclient exists only in limited circumstances.
- In estate-planning matters, a nonclient beneficiary may recover only when the beneficiary is clearly identified as the intended object of the representation and recognition of duty is consistent with the client’s interests and applicable law.
- Courts evaluate whether to extend duty to nonclients using policy factors (including intended effect on plaintiff, foreseeability, certainty of injury, closeness of connection, moral blame, and prevention of future harm).
- Where a purported bequest depends on unexecuted instruments and required court approval that never occurs, the nonclient’s claimed injury lacks sufficient certainty and connection to the attorney’s conduct to justify imposing a duty.

## Conclusion

The court refused to extend the intended-beneficiary doctrine to a conservatorship estate-plan proposal that never became an approved, executed testamentary instrument, holding the estate-planning attorney owed no malpractice duty to the nonclient would-be beneficiary whose asserted inheritance was contingent on court approval.


Hall v. Kalfayan, 190 Cal. App. 4th 927 (Cal. Ct. App. 2010)