## Facts

- Mary Sheldon Lyon executed a 1943 will leaving nearly all of her estate to Father Divine, related corporate entities, and an individual follower.
- Lyon later allegedly expressed a settled intent to revoke the 1943 will and to execute a new will granting substantial legacies to her first cousins (the plaintiffs).
- Attorneys allegedly drafted a new will reflecting those intended gifts, but it was never executed.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants used false representations, undue influence, and physical force to prevent Lyon from executing the new will.
- Plaintiffs further alleged defendants conspired to kill, and did kill, Lyon through a surgical operation arranged by defendants, to ensure the new will would not be executed.
- The 1943 will was admitted to probate after a contest by distributees; the proceeding ended in a compromise under which defendants would receive a large sum from the estate.
- Plaintiffs were not distributees and were not parties to the probate contest or the compromise.
- Plaintiffs did not seek to overturn probate; they sought to impose a constructive trust on what defendants received under the will and compromise.

## Issues

1. Whether a complaint states a cause of action in equity for a constructive trust where will beneficiaries allegedly prevented execution of a later will benefiting plaintiffs through fraud, duress, undue influence, force, and alleged killing.
2. Whether imposing a constructive trust on assets received under a duly probated will and probate compromise constitutes an impermissible collateral attack on the probate decree.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal for pleading insufficiency and reinstated the complaint.
- Treating the complaint’s allegations as true on a motion to dismiss, the court held equity may impose a constructive trust on property received by beneficiaries who wrongfully prevented the testator from making a different testamentary disposition.
- The court held the requested relief was not a collateral attack on probate because it did not challenge the validity of the probated will; it sought in personam relief against alleged wrongdoers after the property passed under the will.

## Legal Principles

- A constructive trust may be imposed where an heir or devisee prevents a testator from executing or revoking a will in favor of another by fraud, duress, undue influence, or similar wrongful conduct.
- Equity may grant relief to prevent unjust enrichment even when the claimant’s interest was an unperfected expectancy under an unexecuted will.
- Probate finality as to the will’s validity does not bar an equitable claim that targets the recipient’s wrongful retention of property rather than the probate decree itself.
- On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court must accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations.

## Conclusion

The court permitted intended beneficiaries named in an unexecuted will to proceed with an equitable action seeking a constructive trust against will beneficiaries who allegedly used wrongful conduct to prevent the testator from executing the new will, holding that such relief can coexist with a valid probate decree.


Latham v. Father Divine, 85 N.E.2d 168 (N.Y. 1949)