When faced with a question of first impression, the Supreme Court of Mississippi looked to the Restatement Third of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers § 8.5, finding that enforcement of an in terrorem provision without a probable-cause exception would frustrate the fundamental purpose of the courts to ascertain the truth.
In this probate dispute, Parker v. Benoist, the decedent’s daughter alleged that decedent’s son unduly influenced decedent, who was suffering from dementia and drug addiction, causing him to make a new will in 2010 that significantly altered the distributions provided by a previous will that he had executed in 1998. After a jury found that the 2010 will was valid and enforceable and that son had not exerted undue influence on decedent, the trial court determined that daughter was no longer a beneficiary of the 2010 will pursuant to its forfeiture in terrorem clause.
This court reversed and rendered judgment allowing daughter to inherit in accordance with the 2010 will, holding that Mississippi law recognized a good-faith and probable-cause exception to a forfeiture in terrorem clause in a will, and that daughter had sufficiently shown that her suit was brought in good faith and was founded on probable cause.