## Facts

- Helen A. Sullivan, an unmarried schoolteacher, executed a will shortly before her death.
- She made specific monetary legacies to two first cousins.
- In discussing a residuary gift with the drafting attorney, Sullivan stated she had about twenty-five first cousins and wanted them to share the remainder equally.
- The executed residuary clause devised the residue to “my heirs at law living at the time of my decease ... to be divided among them equally.”
- Under Massachusetts intestacy law at Sullivan’s death, her maternal aunt, Frances Hawkes Greene, was her only heir at law; first cousins were not heirs at law.
- First cousins petitioned in probate for distribution of the residuary estate to them, relying on the attorney conversation as evidence of intent.
- The probate court ruled the aunt was the sole taker under the residuary clause and dismissed the petition; the cousins appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether extrinsic evidence of the testatrix’s statements to the drafting attorney is admissible to construe “heirs at law” to include first cousins when a definite statutory heir is ascertainable from the will and governing law.
2. Whether the term “heirs at law” is ambiguous merely because it is plural or because it conflicts with alleged oral instructions, permitting construction to reach non-heirs.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the probate decree.
- “Heirs at law” was treated as a technical term with a settled legal meaning tied to the intestacy statutes.
- Because the aunt was the only statutory heir at law, she alone fit the description; the cousins were excluded.
- The plural form “heirs” did not create ambiguity and did not prevent a single person from taking the entire residuary gift.
- The testatrix’s statements to the drafting attorney were not admissible to change the clear meaning of the will’s language.

## Legal Principles

- When the beneficiary class can be identified from the will’s language as applied to governing law, extrinsic evidence of contrary intent is inadmissible to alter that meaning.
- Technical testamentary terms (e.g., “heirs at law”) are construed according to their established legal meaning under the statutes of descent and distribution, absent genuine ambiguity.
- Courts may construe unclear language to resolve uncertainty in application, but they will not reform a duly executed will to correct a drafting mistake by substituting different dispositive terms.

## Conclusion

The residuary clause’s gift to the testatrix’s “heirs at law” unambiguously passed the entire residue to her sole statutory heir, her aunt; evidence that the testatrix orally intended her cousins to take could not be used to rewrite the will.


Mahoney v. Grainger, 186 N.E. 86 (Mass. 1933)