## Facts

- Ronald Wiltfong and Randall Rex were domestic partners for about 20 years, lived together, and intermingled finances.
- On Rex’s birthday in 2003, Wiltfong gave Rex a birthday card containing a typed letter signed by Wiltfong, in the presence of two friends.
- The letter stated that if anything happened to Wiltfong, everything he owned should go to Rex, and described Rex (with their pets and an aunt) as his only family while excluding others.
- Wiltfong told Rex and the two friends that the letter represented his wishes.
- The friends did not see Wiltfong sign the letter, and they did not sign as attesting witnesses.
- Wiltfong died of a heart attack in 2004.
- Rex petitioned to admit the letter to probate as Wiltfong’s will; Margaret L. Tovrea objected, asserting intestacy under which Wiltfong’s nephews would inherit.

## Issues

1. Whether the typed, signed birthday letter could be treated as a will under Colorado’s harmless-error statute, C.R.S. § 15-11-503(2).
2. Whether Rex presented clear and convincing evidence that Wiltfong intended the letter to function as his will.
3. Whether Wiltfong “signed or acknowledged” the letter as his will within the meaning of § 15-11-503(2), notwithstanding the absence of attesting-witness signatures.

## Decision

- The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s determination that Wiltfong died intestate.
- The court held the district court applied § 15-11-503(2) too narrowly by treating the lack of will-formalities compliance as dispositive.
- The court remanded for further proceedings to determine, under the correct standards, whether the letter should be treated as a will based on testamentary intent and the statute’s signature/acknowledgment requirement.

## Legal Principles

- A document that does not comply with the usual will-execution formalities may be treated as a will if the proponent proves by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent intended the document to be the decedent’s will, and the document was signed or acknowledged as such under C.R.S. § 15-11-503(2).
- In applying the harmless-error statute, courts must focus on testamentary intent rather than rejecting the instrument solely for failure to satisfy traditional witnessing formalities.
- “Acknowledgment” of an instrument as a will may be shown through the decedent’s conduct and statements surrounding the document’s delivery and use, and must be evaluated with the surrounding circumstances and credibility determinations.
- In contested formal testacy proceedings, courts must apply the correct statutory burdens and standards, including the clear-and-convincing-evidence requirement specific to § 15-11-503(2).

## Conclusion

The appellate court required the trial court to reassess whether the decedent’s signed letter, delivered and described as expressing his wishes for post-death property distribution, satisfied Colorado’s harmless-error statute through clear and convincing evidence of testamentary intent and sufficient signing or acknowledgment, rather than treating lack of attesting witnesses as fatal.


In re Estate of Wiltfong, 148 P.3d 465 (Colo. App. 2006)