Occasionally, some very inter­est­ing cases arise in the world of trusts and estates.  After all, there’s money, fam­ily intrigue, and not infre­quently an ele­ment of celebrity.  But every now and again comes a case that may lack famil­iar names, but that is just too full of pathos and irony to be over­looked.  One such case was recently reported in The New York Law Journal (“Punitive Damages Levied for Deception Over Will,” 12/22/2011) (accessed via web edi­tion; sub­scrip­tion may be required).  In Castor v. Pulaski, 2011 NY Slip Op 52250(U), tried before the Supreme Court, Onondaga County, we enter a world of mur­der and decep­tion and, rather sur­pris­ingly, come out the other side with some sound advice regard­ing the com­plex­ity of Wills and an entreaty to avoid the haz­ards of DIY Wills.

David Castor Sr. died in August 2005, appar­ently leav­ing a Will that was very gen­er­ous to Stacey Castor, his wife of only a few years.  Nothing unusual so far.  The prin­ci­pal plain­tiff in the case was David Castor Jr., the aggrieved son of a for­mer mar­riage of the decedent’s.  Stacey, although a named defen­dant in the case, did not par­tic­i­pate in the trial.  She was serv­ing 47 years to life in the cor­rec­tional facil­ity in Bedford Hills, New York for mur­der­ing her hus­band, David Sr., by poi­son­ing him with anti-freeze.  The good news for Stacey was that she received only 1 and 1/3 addi­tional years for hav­ing forged her husband’s Will and sub­mit­ted it for pro­bate. The forgery would not have been pos­si­ble absent the assis­tance of Stacey’s friends, Lynn and Paul Pulaski, defen­dants in the case.  In 2005, shortly after David Sr.‘s death, the Pulaskis agreed with Stacey to sign as wit­nesses a pur­ported Will of his, back­dated to 2003.  They later signed affi­davits stat­ing that they had observed the dece­dent sign the Will and that all for­mal­i­ties of law were com­plied with in its execution.

Castor v. Pulaski was tried before a judge, rather than a jury.  Accordingly, it was the judge’s province to eval­u­ate the tes­ti­mony of wit­nesses in the case. The Pulaskis must have done an espe­cially poor job of try­ing to per­suade the court that, in assist­ing Stacey to con­coct a forged Will, they were inno­cent vic­tims who were only try­ing to help a friend.  In his opin­ion, Justice Anthony J. Paris’s eval­u­a­tion of the Pulaskis’ tes­ti­mony was more vis­ceral than judi­cious: “The only feel­ing evoked was a feel­ing of nau­sea and an urge to vomit.” You won’t be sur­prised to learn that David Jr. pre­vailed in the case.  He was awarded the decedent’s net estate of roughly $125,000, together with puni­tive dam­ages of $250,000, and the defen­dants were ordered to pay his attorney’s fees.  Because she had mur­dered her hus­band, Stacey was inel­i­gi­ble to receive any por­tion of her husband’s estate. Commenting on the case, David Jr.‘s lawyer, James A. Meggesto of Syracuse, stressed the impor­tance of care­fully observ­ing the often for­mal­is­tic require­ments for the valid exe­cu­tion of a Will:

Attestation of a will is an area we don’t take lightly. There are some areas of the law where we have less for­mal­ity. But this is not one of them. It is an area where there is a solemn respon­si­bil­ity and some­thing that needs to be looked at with that amount of seri­ous­ness. It rein­forces that this is an area where peo­ple should seek the advice of an attorney.