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The World of Wills
I have nothing, I owe a great deal; the rest I give to the poor.
—the will of Rabelais, a fifteenth-century satirist
Was Rabelais serious, or was this just another example of his wonderful satire? Did this single sentence make a valid will? Whether it did or not, it certainly helped immortalize Rabelais, since it is hard to find a discussion of wills that does not make mention of his. Rabelais, no doubt, would have been immortalized regardless of his will, since he left the world so much more in the form of his literary works. But for those of us who leave little more than some money and a few greedy relatives, the fact is that a colorful or unusual will may offer some prospect of immortality that we would not have otherwise. Although the world of wills can be colorful, however, it can also be grim. A will can be a source of security to a family or it can bankrupt them, as we will see.
Your Own Nobel Prize
Most people know, or at least think they know, what a will is, and they generally treat a will with a certain degree of respect. After all, wills are almost universally regarded as a sort of permanent memorial, a person’s final statement to the world, offering, in many cases, a touch of immortality. A perfect illustration of this is the will of Alfred Nobel, who truly immortalized himself through the provisions of his will. Just a year before his death in 1896, Nobel wrote out his will, which, despite its humble and relatively simple language, gave birth to one of the most widely known and respected memorials in the world—the Nobel Prize. This is what he wrote that formed the foundation for the prize:
The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prize for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be a Scandinavian or not.
Paris, November 27, 1895
Alfred Bernhard Nobel
Through this “simple” will, carefully handwritten by Nobel himself (as allowed in Sweden) in the Swedish language, Nobel thought, no doubt, that he had included all the necessary provisions to carry out his now-famous plan. Actually, Nobel’s will was very poorly drafted (he disliked lawyers and, therefore, decided to write it himself) and resulted in protracted legal battles, requiring the court to clarify and interpret important issues relating to, among other things, the selection of candidates and awarding of the prizes. Nevertheless, after years of court proceedings in several different countries and about a half-million dollars (a respectable fortune in those days) in fees, legacies, and expenses, the remainder went to establish permanent immortality for Nobel.
Then there are other types of immortality—one that results when the deceased was a popular figure before his death, so there is a great deal of continuing public interest in how he left his estate, and another where there is a bitter and very public dispute over the provisions of a will, or both, such as in the case of the late Howard Hughes. Hughes, the eccentric Nevada billionaire, died in 1976, a bitter, emaciated, ninety-two-pound remainder of a man, and almost instantly the fights began over his estate. Over forty wills surfaced after his death, each claiming to be the billionaire’s last will. The most famous of these was the “Mormon will,” purportedly found on the desk of an official of the Mormon Church. The Mormon will, which appeared to be in Hughes’s own handwriting, left one-sixteenth of his $4 billion estate to Melvin Dummar, a gas station operator who, as the story goes, picked up a poor old man on a deserted road and gave him a lift to Las Vegas and a quarter to make a phone call. The poor old man turned out to be Howard Hughes, who, in a gesture of generosity totally foreign to his reported character, left Dummar a princely chunk of his estate. Dummar’s story was later recounted in the 1980 film Melvin and Howard.
The fairy tale would have been complete had the Mormon will been declared valid, but after a trial that took the better part of a year and several million dollars in legal fees, Dummar and the Mormons lost the case. Despite the appearance of forty wills, the courts finally decided that Hughes died without a will. All in all, it took more than thirty-four years to settle the estate, providing a comfortable annuity to the battalions of attorneys who represent the estate and its labyrinthine interests in oil wells, real estate, airlines, television stations, hotels, and casinos.
The estates of Hughes and Nobel were admittedly extremes. Still, some of us may achieve a touch of immortality by creating our own little “Nobel” prize in the form of a small scholarship fund or a research grant, while others may unwittingly achieve the same result as Hughes by leaving no will, a defective will, or several wills, or even a valid will that becomes the subject of a bitter dispute. Or perhaps we will express some wish or bequest so unique that it finds its way into newspaper articles and law books, such as that of Sandra West, late of California, whose will directed that she be buried “in my lace nightgown … in my Ferrari, with the seat slanted comfortably.” Whatever the case, the fact remains that our wills will be governed by the same principles and applicable rules of law as those of Howard Hughes, Alfred Nobel, and Sandra West.
In the cases of Nobel and Hughes, it is interesting (and essential) to note, for instance, that both of these famous estates consisted almost entirely of probate property, and this is why their wills were so important. A person’s will deals only with property or assets that are part of his probate estate, and the probate estate is governed by the local probate process. In this chapter, we will look at the power as well as the vulnerabilities of probate, and the complexities as well as the absurdities of the process. Technically, the probate process involves a “proving” of the deceased’s last will (i.e., that it was a properly signed, valid will under the law and that it was the last one the decedent made). But as a practical matter, the probate courts also deal with disputes relating to the transfer of the property of a deceased person and claims against his estate. Therefore, if the deceased left a will, it is the job of the probate court (some states call it the surrogate’s court, orphan’s court, or chancery court) to decide whether the will was valid according to the laws of the applicable state, and if it is declared valid, the probate estate will be disposed of according to the will. If the will was not valid, or if the deceased left no will, then the probate court will order the deceased’s property disposed of through the probate court according to state law.
Copyright © 2021 by Alexander A. Bove, Jr. All rights reserved
