## Facts

- Howard Kennedy Beale, a Wisconsin resident, died in 1959 leaving an estate of about $1.25 million and three minor sons.
- Beale prepared a fourteen-page typed will dated June 22, 1959.
- While in New York, Beale presented a stack of papers as his will and signed a page in the presence of three witnesses, who signed the same page; the pages were not physically fastened together and the witnesses did not read the other pages.
- The will substantially limited the youngest son Thomas’s interest, leaving him a contingent remainder rather than a substantial outright share.
- Shortly before or after execution, Beale sent pages 12 and 13 to his secretary with handwritten edits and asked that they be retyped; the requested changes concerned administrative matters (e.g., executor identity) and did not alter the dispositive scheme.
- The secretary retyped the pages and returned them, and Beale later asked that they be retyped again on the same typewriter as the original so all pages would match; he died before that occurred.
- The county probate court admitted the will to probate after hearings and a written decision.
- Thomas, through a guardian ad litem, appealed, arguing the document lacked testamentary intent at execution and was invalid as an “unnatural” will.

## Issues

1. Whether the June 22, 1959 document constituted Beale’s will at the moment of execution despite loose pages and later attempts to revise certain pages.
2. Whether a will that significantly limits a minor child’s inheritance may be denied probate or subjected to a heightened justification requirement solely because it is “unnatural,” absent evidence of incapacity, undue influence, or similar defects.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the judgment admitting the June 22, 1959 will to probate.
- The court held the instrument was validly executed and reflected testamentary intent at the time of execution; later attempted page substitutions were ineffective and did not invalidate the executed will.
- The court rejected the contention that an allegedly “unnatural” disposition shifts a burden to proponents or affects validity without proof that the will failed to reflect the testator’s true intent due to incapacity, undue influence, or other vitiating circumstances.
- The court deferred to the probate court’s factual findings that the pages offered for probate were present at execution and that the will expressed Beale’s wishes.

## Legal Principles

- A will must represent the testator’s intent at the moment of execution; ineffective post-execution alterations do not retroactively defeat testamentary intent or void a duly executed will.
- For a multi-page will, physical fastening is not determinative if the evidence supports that the pages offered for probate were the pages present when the will was executed.
- A formally valid will is not invalid merely because its provisions appear harsh or “unnatural” toward an expected beneficiary; courts do not impose a special burden of justification absent proof of incapacity, undue influence, or similar defects.
- A testator’s right to dispose of property by will includes the right to disfavor a natural object of bounty, and courts enforce that choice when statutory execution requirements and voluntariness are established.

## Conclusion

The court upheld probate of Beale’s will, concluding that later attempted administrative revisions did not negate testamentary intent at execution and that limiting a child’s inheritance, without evidence of incapacity or undue influence, does not render a duly executed will invalid.


In re Estate of Beale, 15 Wis. 2d 546, 113 N.W.2d 380 (Wis. 1962)