## Facts

- Margaret Stewart Stotlar, a Delaware resident, died in 1985 after years of severe alcohol abuse.
- She had three children: James C. Stotlar Jr. and Pamela Stotlar Cook (the contestants) and Stewart T. Stotlar (the proponent of the challenged documents).
- The court considered the validity of two wills and a codicil executed during Margaret’s decline.
- On January 25, 1983, Margaret executed a will that favored Stewart and disfavored or disinherited James and Pamela.
- On September 13, 1983, Margaret executed a second will that again favored Stewart and disfavored or disinherited James and Pamela.
- On January 4, 1984, Margaret executed a codicil while Stewart was taking her to the hospital.
- At that hospital visit, Margaret was diagnosed with possible hepatic encephalopathy, a condition associated with impaired mental functioning.
- Unlike the 1983 will-execution events, there was no videotape of the January 4, 1984 codicil execution.
- Evidence included a September 2, 1983 videotape in which Margaret appeared not to understand the nature of her investments.
- Evidence also included a videotape from September 13, 1983 taken in connection with execution of the second will; on that recording, her attorney did not discuss her assets.
- Contestants presented medical and lay testimony that Margaret’s continual, excessive alcohol use was associated with a progressive cognitive decline.
- The dispute centered on whether Margaret had testamentary capacity at the times she signed the 1983 wills and the 1984 codicil, and whether Stewart’s involvement and benefit reflected undue influence rather than Margaret’s independent intent.

## Issues

1. Whether Margaret’s continual, excessive alcohol use (and related cognitive decline) deprived her of testamentary capacity when she executed the January 25, 1983 will, the September 13, 1983 will, and the January 4, 1984 codicil.
2. Whether Margaret’s condition made her susceptible to undue influence by Stewart, such that one or more of the challenged instruments reflected Stewart’s will rather than Margaret’s free choice.

## Decision

- The Court of Chancery evaluated the challenged instruments in a fact-intensive will-contest proceeding, focusing on Margaret’s mental state at each execution date.
- The court treated the evidence of long-term alcoholism, progressive cognitive impairment, and the circumstances surrounding the January 1984 hospital visit (including the possible hepatic encephalopathy diagnosis) as material to capacity and susceptibility.
- The court considered the videotaped evidence from September 1983 as relevant but not determinative, noting limits on what the recordings showed about Margaret’s understanding of her property and estate plan.
- Based on the record as a whole, the court determined that the contestants established grounds to set aside at least some of the Stewart-favoring testamentary changes on lack-of-capacity and/or undue-influence grounds.

## Legal Principles

- Testamentary capacity requires that, at the time of execution, the testator understand the act of making a will, the general nature and extent of her property, and the persons who would ordinarily be expected to share in her estate.
- A history of alcoholism or illness does not automatically defeat capacity; the question is the testator’s mental condition at the specific time the instrument is executed.
- Capacity and undue influence may be proven through a combination of medical evidence and lay observations about the testator’s functioning, including her ability to manage finances and comprehend her assets.
- Videotapes and other contemporaneous materials can be probative of the testator’s mental condition, but their weight depends on whether they actually show comprehension of property and dispositive choices.
- Undue influence may be inferred from circumstantial proof, including a weakened mental state, a beneficiary’s opportunity to control access or the estate-planning process, and a disposition that markedly favors the alleged influencer.
- When a favored beneficiary is involved in arranging execution events—especially in pressured or unusual circumstances—the court may scrutinize whether the instrument reflects the testator’s free agency.

## Conclusion

In this will contest, the Delaware Court of Chancery assessed whether Margaret Stewart Stotlar’s long-term alcohol abuse and related cognitive decline—highlighted by a hospital visit and possible hepatic encephalopathy diagnosis near the time of a codicil—left her without testamentary capacity and vulnerable to undue influence by the child who benefited most; the court’s ruling turned on the execution-time evidence and supported setting aside at least some of the challenged Stewart-favoring instruments.


In the Matter of the Purported Last Will and Testament of Margaret Stewart Stotlar, 1987 WL 6091 (1987)