In today’s blog post, I discuss a few notable developments from this past year in the field of trust and estate disputes.
New Standard For Undue Influence In Will Contest Cases
First, probably the most notable development from this past year is that Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a law that provides for a new standard for undue influence in will contest cases. Senate Bill 554 added a new provision to the Virginia Code in Section 64.2-454.1. I wrote a lengthy blog post this past summer on the bill (which blog post can be found here), so I won’t repeat myself in this post. But I do have some observations to make now that the new law has been in effect for a few months.
Some estate planning attorneys opposed the new law because they were concerned that it could lead to a “wave” of new will contest lawsuits. In short, that has not happened. My team and I have filed quite a number of will contest lawsuits since the new law went into effect this past July, and we unquestionably would have filed all of them even if the old standard was still in place. The new law is certainly helpful to litigants seeking to overturn a will on the basis of undue influence, but as I pointed out in my earlier blog post, the new law is hardly a silver bullet. In fact, it does nothing to help a litigant who is contesting a will on some ground other than undue influence, and it also arguably does nothing to help a litigant who is concurrently contesting the validity of a trust.
CONTINUE READING . . .