(CAVEAT: Even though a lot of details are public record, the names and relevant identifying details have been altered in order to maintain any potential attorney-client privilege).
Unfortunately, the adoption papers
which Faye's mother kept in her Bible disappeared after the funeral. Since the loss of the adoption paperwork worked to their benefit, John and
Frank were the obvious suspects. Because the adoptions occurred so long in the
past and in another state, we had to hire a private investigator to find proof
of the adoptions. As for Eliza, a search of local
records found a copy of her obituary which clearly referenced her adoptive
mother and her natural mother. This was
enough to convince Eliza’s sons that they should back out of the litigation and
they did so early on. John and Frank on the other hand were also
well aware that they had been adopted by an aunt and uncle, but were adamant that they were not adopted. John and Frank were in it
for the cash. Because we could not find
their adoption paperwork we had to proceed on their Will contest.
In any Will contest regarding the
proper execution of the Will, the most important people are the two witnesses
to the Will. If the Will is self proven,
the notary is the third most important person.
If the two witnesses give testimony which contradict each other, or show
that the Will was not executed properly then the proponent of the Will will
lose on that ground. So in the course of things, I found myself in Pensacola
deposing the two witnesses to the holographic Will. The witnesses were unrelated to each other in
any way except they were both friends of Faye and her mother. On the day that Faye’s mother executed her
Will, they were having a party at her house which sounded like a cookout. Both witnesses gave consistent testimony
regarding the manner in which they witnessed the Will. Unfortunately for Faye, the witnesses’
testimony also completely invalidated the Will.
Apparently, Faye’s mother hand
wrote her Will and signed it. During the
party, she asked the first witness to witness her signature. This part was done correctly in that Faye’s
mother showed the signed Will and then attested to her signature to the witness and
asked the witness to sign as a witness. The problem
is that the first witness witnessed the Will while the second witness was on the back deck drinking a beer. Thereafter, the
first witness went to the restroom and the second witness came in and Faye’s
mother repeated the process. Thus,
neither witness was in presence of each other at all, much less in the presence of Faye's mother and each other, as is required by
the Will statute.
The end result of this was that
Faye’s mother was intestate. The
brothers were counting on this because then they would inherit (under their
reasoning) an intestate share of their mother’s estate. Because Faye’s mother was not married at the
time of her death her estate would be divided into four equal shares: one each for Faye and her two brothers John
and Frank, and one to be divided by Eliza’s children. Everyone agreed that Mike had been adopted by
strangers, so there was never any suggestion that he would inherit any of
Faye’s mother’s estate.
So, Faye's entire inheritance turned on proving the adoption of John and Frank by the aunt and uncle. This proved to be incredibly difficult and ultimately required the services of a P.I. and an attorney in two different states as well as some luck.
Copyright 2013 Julie Ann Sombathy All Rights Reserved
