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Wills • Components of a Will
WILLS#031
Legal Definition
This doctrine permits a court to resolve ambiguities in a will by referring to certain document or acts effectuated during the testator's lifetime for primarily non-testamentary motives.
Plain English Explanation
Facts or events of <independent significance> are those that a testator can reference as a qualifier for who should take under their will, but have entirely separate significance from the will itself. Generally, they come about when identifying either beneficiaries or property.
In other words, because courts try extra hard to make sure they are interpreting a will accurately, they will sometimes utilize facts outside of the will to help clarify what the dead person's intent truly was. By looking at how the dead person acted, or referencing certain documents, sometimes valuable context can be found. The key part here though is those acts and documents must not have been performed or created with the purpose of being part of the dead person's estate plan. Why? Because if they were, then the person should have gone through the normal channels to estate plan properly.
For example, a will might say "I leave $10,000 to the charity I donated the most money to last year." The will doesn't name a specific organization, which would require the court to look at some external facts to figure out which charity get $10,000. The amount donated last year is an act of independent significance - it happened apart from the will but helps identify the charity named in the will. In other words, the doctrine allows courts to look to these outside documents or events that have a separate meaning or purpose from the will in order to interpret an ambiguous will. So if there is confusion about who should get what under a will, the court can look to acts of independent significance referred to in the will to clear up the ambiguity.
In other words, because courts try extra hard to make sure they are interpreting a will accurately, they will sometimes utilize facts outside of the will to help clarify what the dead person's intent truly was. By looking at how the dead person acted, or referencing certain documents, sometimes valuable context can be found. The key part here though is those acts and documents must not have been performed or created with the purpose of being part of the dead person's estate plan. Why? Because if they were, then the person should have gone through the normal channels to estate plan properly.
For example, a will might say "I leave $10,000 to the charity I donated the most money to last year." The will doesn't name a specific organization, which would require the court to look at some external facts to figure out which charity get $10,000. The amount donated last year is an act of independent significance - it happened apart from the will but helps identify the charity named in the will. In other words, the doctrine allows courts to look to these outside documents or events that have a separate meaning or purpose from the will in order to interpret an ambiguous will. So if there is confusion about who should get what under a will, the court can look to acts of independent significance referred to in the will to clear up the ambiguity.
Hypothetical
Hypo 1: Bob has a will that says "I leave $1,000 to all of my employees who are working for me at my time of death." When the will was executed, Sam, Amy, and Carl all worked for Bob. However, at the time of Bob's death, he had previously fired Sam, kept Amy and Carl, and hired Timmy. Who gets $1,000? Result: Bob's firing of Sam and hiring of Timmy were entirely independent from the will itself (Bob didn't hire or fire people based on who should get $1,000 upon his death). Thus, Sam will not receive $1,000, because he doesn't work for Bob, but Timmy does get $1,000.
Hypo 2: Bob has a will that says, "I leave my gold ring with an inscription of my birthday, kept secret and safe in my bedside table, to the person whose name I write on the tag attached to it." Years later, Bob writes Sam's name on the tag and dies. Result: The only purpose for writing a name on the tag was to identify who gets the ring upon Bob's death, which means it has no independent significance except as a testamentary act. By writing Sam's name on the tag, Bob is effectively making a direct modification to his will. This is different from the doctrine's intended application, where external, independently significant acts are used to clarify ambiguous terms in a will. Bob's action is a direct testamentary instruction, akin to updating the will itself, which is not what the doctrine is designed to address. Since the act of writing Sam's name on the tag is not an act of independent significance and does not comply with the formal requirements for altering a will, it is unlikely that a court would recognize this as a valid testamentary disposition. The ring would likely pass according to the terms of the original will, or, if no alternative provision was made, it might be treated as part of the residuary estate and distributed accordingly.
Hypo 2: Bob has a will that says, "I leave my gold ring with an inscription of my birthday, kept secret and safe in my bedside table, to the person whose name I write on the tag attached to it." Years later, Bob writes Sam's name on the tag and dies. Result: The only purpose for writing a name on the tag was to identify who gets the ring upon Bob's death, which means it has no independent significance except as a testamentary act. By writing Sam's name on the tag, Bob is effectively making a direct modification to his will. This is different from the doctrine's intended application, where external, independently significant acts are used to clarify ambiguous terms in a will. Bob's action is a direct testamentary instruction, akin to updating the will itself, which is not what the doctrine is designed to address. Since the act of writing Sam's name on the tag is not an act of independent significance and does not comply with the formal requirements for altering a will, it is unlikely that a court would recognize this as a valid testamentary disposition. The ring would likely pass according to the terms of the original will, or, if no alternative provision was made, it might be treated as part of the residuary estate and distributed accordingly.
