A Tennessee court case highlights the perils of using preprinted wills rather than consulting with a qualified attorney to draw up an estate plan. In Re Green (Tenn. Ct. App., No. M2002-01672-COA-R3-CV, Aug. 29, 2003).
Lillie Green died on October 26, 2001, at age 91. Her will, executed without the help of an attorney, was a preprinted form with blanks to make handwritten entries. Mrs. Green's will stated, in part: "I give all my estate to my children, if any, who survive me in equal shares, per stirpes."
The problem with this language is that the technical term per stirpes is inconsistent with what comes before it. "I give all my estate to my children, if any, who survive me . . . " implies that any offspring of children who did not survive Mrs. Green will not be able to take under the will. On the other hand, the use of per stirpes in a will suggests the opposite: that offspring of deceased children may inherit.
This wouldn't have presented a problem if all of Mrs. Green's children had survived her, but unfortunately one did not, and that child left two sons. These grandsons of Mrs. Green believed they had a claim on a portion of her estate because of her use of the term per stirpes. The case went through Tennesse's probate court system, no doubt at great expense, and ended up before the Court of Appeals of Tennessee.
The Court of Appeals of Tennessee rules that the grandsons cannot share in Mrs. Green's estate. The court holds that Mrs. Green clearly intended to pass her estate to her surviving children and only to her grandchildren if no children survived her. The court finds that the use of the term per stirpes in the preprinted will form was a mistake'”one that a qualified attorney surely would not have made.
To download the full text of this decision in PDF format, go to: https://www.tsc.state.tn.us/opinions/tca/PDF/033/Green.pdf.
(If you do not have the free PDF reader installed on your computer, download it here.)
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