In re Estate of Hall
Montana Supreme Court
51 P.3d 1134 (2002)

- Written by Christine Raino, JD
Facts
In 1984, James Mylen Hall executed a will (original will). In 1997, he and his wife, Betty Lou Hall (defendant), worked with their attorney on preparing a joint will. During a meeting with their attorney to review a draft of the joint will, they marked it up with various revisions and agreed that the draft will as revised was an accurate statement of their testamentary plan. Because their attorney still needed to draft the final, clean copy with the mark-ups on the draft incorporated, James and Betty Lou asked him if they could execute the draft in the meantime to ensure that their testamentary scheme was protected. Their attorney advised them that the draft would be enforceable if it was signed and notarized, so James and Betty Lou proceeded to execute the marked-up draft of the joint will. The joint will was notarized by their attorney without any other witnesses. James then asked Betty Lou to destroy the original will, and she did so. After James died, Betty Lou offered the joint will informally for probate. Sandra (plaintiff), one of James’s daughters from a prior marriage, objected to informal probate of the joint will and offered the original will for formal probate. After the court admitted the joint will to probate, Sandra appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Regnier, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 833,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,500 briefs, keyed to 994 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.