## Facts

- Harvey Snide and his wife, Rose Snide, intended to execute mutual, reciprocal wills at a joint execution ceremony.
- The wills were substantively identical, each leaving the testator’s estate to the surviving spouse, differing only in the testator/beneficiary names.
- At execution, the attorney mistakenly switched the documents: Harvey signed the will drafted for Rose, and Rose signed the will drafted for Harvey.
- The envelopes were labeled with each testator’s name, but no one noticed the internal mismatch between the signer’s identity and the name used in the will’s text and attestation clause.
- After Harvey’s death, Rose offered for probate the instrument Harvey actually signed (bearing his genuine signature but containing Rose’s name within the document).
- Two adult children consented to probate; a guardian ad litem for the Snides’ minor child objected, asserting the child would receive an intestate share if probate were denied.
- There was no dispute that Harvey had testamentary capacity, understood he was executing a will, intended to make a will favoring Rose, and that execution otherwise complied with EPTL 3-2.1 formalities aside from the “switched wills” mistake.

## Issues

1. Whether an instrument may be admitted to probate as a decedent’s will when, during a joint ceremony for identical mutual wills, the decedent mistakenly signed the spouse’s will rather than the will drafted for the decedent.
2. Whether testamentary intent is defeated because the decedent did not intend to sign the particular physical document offered for probate, even though its dispositive terms matched the decedent’s intended plan.
3. Whether strict application of will formalities requires denial of probate where the signer’s name does not appear as testator within the body and attestation clause of the executed instrument.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and reinstated probate of the instrument signed by Harvey.
- The court held that, where identical mutual wills are simultaneously executed with statutory formalities, probate may be granted even though the spouses mistakenly signed each other’s wills.
- The court treated the error as a genuine clerical mix-up in presentment, not a failure of capacity, voluntariness, or testamentary intent.
- The court concluded that denying probate on these facts would defeat a clear testamentary plan without serving the protective purposes of the execution statute, given the lack of realistic fraud risk.

## Legal Principles

- Testamentary intent may be found when a testator knowingly participates in a will-execution ceremony and intends to execute a will with the dispositive scheme contained in the signed instrument, even if the wrong reciprocal instrument was mistakenly presented.
- Statutory execution formalities are designed to secure authenticity and reliable proof of intent; mechanical insistence on internal name conformity may yield where the record shows a single, obvious mistake and the dispositive intent is certain.
- When spouses simultaneously execute substantively identical mutual wills under the same ceremony and witnesses, the risk of fraud or undue influence from a cross-signing error may be sufficiently minimal to permit probate of the executed instrument.
- The case supports a limited, fact-specific willingness to treat a clear scrivener/presentment error in identical reciprocal wills as non-fatal to probate, rather than voiding the will and forcing intestacy.

## Conclusion

The court admitted to probate the will instrument the decedent actually signed despite an internal name mismatch caused by a switched-document mistake at a joint execution of identical mutual wills, because statutory formalities were otherwise satisfied, testamentary intent was clear, and denial of probate would needlessly frustrate the intended disposition.


In re Snide, 52 N.Y.2d 193, 418 N.E.2d 656 (N.Y. 1981)