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Reformation of Wills on the Ground of Mistake

其他書名	Change of Direction in American Law?
出版	SSRN, 2015
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=-yDjzwEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋Wills cannot be reformed on the ground of mistake. That was the traditional rule: An unambiguous provision in a will could not be reformed, no matter how persuasive the evidence was that the provision mistakenly expressed the testator's true intention. Courts backed the anti- reformation rule up with a no-extrinsic-evidence rule, a rule that precluded evidence contradicting the plain meaning of the text. In Estate of Duke, P.3d (No. S199435, slip op. Cal. July 27, 2015), the California Supreme Court overturned the traditional anti-reformation rule and held that a will can be reformed on the ground of mistake. In reaching its conclusion, the court relied extensively on John H. Langbein & Lawrence W. Waggoner, Reformation of Wills on the Ground of Mistake: Change of Direction in American Law?, 130 U. Pa. L. Rev. 521 (1982). That article also formed the basis for the reformation rule adopted in the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers § 12.1 (2003). The Restatement's reformation rule, in turn, formed the basis for the reformation rule in the Uniform Trust Code § 415 and the Uniform Probate Code § 2-805. Full disclosure: The authors of the law review article served as Reporters for the Restatement and played a part in adding the will-reformation rule to the Uniform Trust Code and the Uniform Probate Code. Before the California Supreme Court decided Estate of Duke, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in Flannery v. McNamara, 738 N.E.2d 739 (Mass. 2000) (4-to-2 decision), refused to adopt the Restatement's reformation rule, but the New York court in Estate of Herceg, 139 Misc. 2d 201, 747 N.Y.S.2d 91 (Sur. Ct. 2002), adopted it.