7.2 Fraud

As with other documents, a will may be the product of fraud if the testator is deceived into signing the will without understanding that the document is meant to be a will or if there is a provision in the will which is unknown to the testator. Dukeminier points to In reEstate of Carson, 184 Cal. 437 (Cal. 1920), as a “dramatic illustration” of part of the difficulty in determining what constitutes fraud and inducement of gaining a bequest in a will. Dukeminier, supra. In Carson, a man induced the testatrix to go through a “marriage ceremony” while knowingly married to another women. Thus, the ceremony was fraudulent. After living together for a year the testrix died and left the majority of her estate to her “husband”. The issue to be decided was whether the bequest was a product of the fraud or a product of the intimate relationship that was valid regardless of the issue of the fraudulent marriage. The court in Carson pointed out the difficulties in determining the issue at hand. An easy case would be if the parties lived together in excess of twenty years, then it would be fairly likely that the bequest did not hinge on the supposed legal relationship with the “husband”. Similarly, if it was a deathbed marriage followed by the will the fraud would be almost certainly related to the bequest. “Between these two extreme cases come those wherein it cannot be said that either one conclusion or the other is wholly unreasonable, and in those cases the determination of the fact is for the jury.” Id. at 442.