Reformation of Wills in Massachusetts

The following summary is supplied through the courtesy of Martin D. Begleiter (Professor of Law, Drake University):   

William Bruinsma, a private and frugal man, died in 1998 leaving a will bequeathing one-half of the income from his residuary estate (including capital gains distributions from his securities and bank accounts) to each of a friend and his sister during their lifetimes and on their deaths, to 2 charities. He did not tell the drafting attorney the value of his assets. When he died, his estate was worth about $ 1.7 million, more than the applicable exemption amount at that time.

Ten years after his death, his executrix petitioned the court to reform the will to create a CRAT. The beneficiaries consented. Despite a potential tax savings of more than $466,000, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts denied reformation in Pellegrini v. Breitenbach, 2010 WL 2026754 (Mass.). Noting that past Massachusetts cases had allowed reformation of trusts, the court said that this will created no trust and that the court had previously held it had no power to reform wills.

Moreover, there was no mistake on the part of the drafting attorney, who had followed the decedent’s requests. There was no evidence that decedent cared about the tax consequences of the will. He was concerned about keeping the will simple and inexpensive. There was no certainty that the IRS would respect the reformation, coming as it did 10 years after decedent’s death. Even if decedent had intended to establish a charitable remainder trust, there was no evidence that he would have preferred a CRAT to a CRUT, given that the will did not mandate annual distributions of income. These factors led the court to decline to reform the will.