Psychiatric assessment related to disputes that arise from the last will and testament of an individual may seem like an area that psychiatrists would not become involved in since it usually has to do with people who are deceased or alternatively with people at the time they make their will. Death, of course, is an area traditionally reserved for pathologists. Interesting reinforcement of the association of death with that field is that people often respond to the description of one's work in forensic psychiatry as “so, you talk to dead people?” This turns out not to be the case in both the former and the latter situations. Psychiatrists often become involved in matters that arise from or are related to wills and forensic psychiatric work is not related to talking to dead people.
Before delving into some of the details of such examinations it makes sense to provide some background on what a “Last Will and Testament” is. This should help in understanding how psychiatrists can help sort issues out for the parties that become embroiled in legal matters related to them.
The Will Explained
An individual's last will and testament is the document that describes how that individual's assets are to be distributed upon his or her death. Such a document is the result of legal doctrine, something that may be clear to those that follow political discussion today in the US about taxes that arise from the distribution of the deceased individual's assets. There are many ways one's assets could be distributed: The government or ruling entity (if there is one) could simply take what was held by the deceased; the government or ruling entity could have specific rules describing how the assets are to be distributed; or the decisions regarding distribution could be made by a third party—for example, “heirs by birth” might indicate that the children or other descendents of the deceased are the ones who decide on asset distribution. The variations are, in fact, numerous.
Intestacy
In the US, an individual's estate, when not distributed through the use of a legal document (such as a will), ends up passing through a doctrine called intestacy. This means that when a person dies without a will, his or her assets will be distributed according to specific rules. These rules usually distribute assets to a spouse and then children and grandchildren in specific proportions through sometimes complex methods. Also worth noting is that in many states, if a relative of the deceased party is completely removed from the distribution of assets, he or she may still receive some assets separately from the distribution under the will.
The description of intestate distribution may make something evident to the reader: If no will exists, certain parties will stand to benefit based on the rules that designate who gets what. Alternatively, if certain sections of a last will and testament are thrown out by a court, parties who are to receive distribution designated by the will might stand to get more.
Capacity Traditionally Necessary
In order for someone to successfully distribute his or her assets by means of a will, he or she needs to have what is referred to as testamentary capacity. This means he or she has the level of mental functioning and awareness required by state law to distribute his or her assets legally through a will.
Testamentary capacity is considered to be a relatively low standard of capacity. Like many other areas of the law, this is governed by the individual laws of the states. These laws vary in their details, but share one common area that is derived from our nation's traditional common law: The individual making the will need not have a complex understanding of the legal mechanisms that come into play were there no will, and he or she need not have a sophisticated understanding of the financial implications in terms of taxes and investments for his or her heirs on his or her assets. What the individual does need to have is knowledge of the following: 1) that the document he or she is signing is a will, 2) what the assets are that will be distributed, 3) who the heirs are to which the assets will be distributed, and 4) how the assets are to be distributed.
Undue Influence
Another important concept to understand about wills is that they can be found invalid (or at least certain parts of them can be found to be invalid) if it is determined that someone exerted so-called ‘undue influence' over the person at the time he or she executed the document. An extreme example would be the forced signing of a will performed while the person is under duress or threat of physical force leaving all assets to the person applying the threat. More subtle examples include situations where there is manipulation or deception to induce a gift through the will. Such action can, and does, lead to court action.
How Psychiatrists Get Involved
Psychiatrists that become involved in cases related to an individual's last will and testament can do so before and after the death of the individual in question.
After death. The classic cases occur after the death of the testator. The will often distributes assets in a way that surprises and/or angers a person who had certain expectations prior to the death. Sometimes these expectations were encouraged by the deceased. Other times there are heirs by birth who feel they received an unfair share of the distribution. It is probably not a surprise to readers of a psychiatry journal that familial relationships and emotion are often intimately tied to material and financial matters, and these percolate around death and wills. These “burned” members of the potential group of heirs often retain counsel under the belief that there was no way this could have been the way the deceased truly intended to distribute things, often accusing another heir of manipulating the eventual outcome.
In these situations, psychiatrists are often called upon to attempt to examine any records, meet with involved parties, and determine if there is a basis to claim there was undue influence, a classic psychiatric illness that affected the thought process of the testator (for instance paranoia regarding a relative), or another reason such as dementia that interfered with the testamentary capacity of the deceased at the time the will was drafted and executed.
An additional way psychiatrists often become involved in cases involving wills is when a patient is deceased and the clinician is asked for records and to answer questions about that person's state of mind generally and at the time the will was drafted.
Before death. Psychiatrists can also become involved in evaluations before the death of the testator. Evaluation of an individual contemporaneously with the drafting of the will can help avoid future problems that arise after the person dies. This is particularly useful when the testator is drafting a last will and testament that distributes things in an untraditional way or that specifically excludes someone from the distribution who might have traditionally gotten something or would do so through intestacy procedures.
Such preemptive evaluations can actually make excellent economic sense, especially in cases where estates are large. As the size of the estate grows, so does the incentive for attorneys representing disgruntled clients to try to get a piece of the estate for their clients. Such an evaluation, which must be performed with the state's testamentary capacity standard in mind, make overturning the will much more difficult and help assure that the wishes of the deceased will be carried out.
Case Studies
In an effort to demonstrate the kinds of cases in which you may be asked to provide an opinion in an effort to help determine whether a will should stand, we provide the following two case studies:
Case 1. In New York, a wealthy philanthropist with no children died with a will leaving more than $100,000,000 to charity and none to his only remaining heir, a niece. That niece maintained that she was entitled to at least a part of the estate under New York's intestacy statutes. She found an attorney, and that attorney found a psychiatrist who interviewed the niece, examined medical records, and came to the following conclusion: The testator was lacking in testamentary capacity as a result of severe narcissism and a history of difficult family relationships, which were also discussed in the medical records.
Attorneys representing the estate, who were retained by the executor (the individual appointed in the will to administer the estate), asked for an opinion from another psychiatrist about the conclusion of the other expert. This evaluation concluded that personality traits and disorders in and of themselves were not enough to undermine the testamentary capacity of the testator simply based on their description in the literature.
The court in this case never reached the issue about testamentary capacity as they sided with the second expert who said that even if the first opinion was correct it would not make the deceased lacking in capacity at the time the will was executed. The first opinion was “thrown out” and the will stood.
Discussions with the attorneys for the estate revealed that they believed the case was brought about under the thinking that a settlement for a few million dollars would be reached since that is what litigation would end up costing. The executor decided to challenge the claimant and did spend actually more than two million dollars fighting the claim, but in the end was successful. This indicates that the strategy of the claimant was not to win in court, but get the estate to pay her to go away.
Case 2. The deceased, who had divorced and remarried, left his estate to his new family and completely removed his children from his first marriage from his asset distribution. In this case, the value of the estate was approximately $200,000, most of which was tied up in his home where he lived alone. He had died after a long bout with cancer, which included metastases to the brain. Additionally he had changed his will after the cancer diagnosis.
The children from the first marriage felt they were entitled to share equally with the children from the second marriage (there were two children by each wife), and so they hired an attorney to make their claim. They were informed that the legal bills could well exceed the value of anything they received if they were victorious, but they decided to pursue the claim. They believed the will was changed under pressure from the new children, that he was suffering from cancer, and that he, therefore, was not of his “right mind” at the time of the will drafing
The estate's executor retained a registered nurse to examine the files for signs of dementia, and she concluded that the individual showed no signs of dementia and was “competent.” This opinion was obtained preemptively in anticipation of the claims of the children from the first marriage (although after the death). The attorney for the children from the first marriage retained a psychiatrist who reviewed the records and concluded that based on the medications that were being taken combined with the clinical picture it was likely that the deceased was not fully functional and was possibly below the standard for testamentary capacity.
The case was settled, and the estate was split equally among all of the children on the day before the case was scheduled to begin in court. Discussions with the attorney revealed that this likely resulted from the willingness of the children from the first marriage to fight the case, and it came down to simple economics—even though the psychiatrists' opinions were not conclusive, fighting the case would have wiped out all of the estate's value. The conversation also revealed that the suit was motivated more by emotional and personal feelings of abandonment felt by the children of the first marriage than any other factor.
Summary
Cases involving the last will and testament of an individual where psychiatrists become involved can be interesting due to the complex interpersonal and family issues that are involved, as well as the complexity of the legal strategy that occurs. It is important to consider the law in one's state to ensure that examinations with the appropriate standard for testamentary capacity are performed and that evaluations are done independently.
Due to the emotional nature of death and money, especially when they are commingled, estates need not be large to attract litigation. Psychiatric evaluations that occur when wills are executed, particularly when the distribution is nontraditional, can make good sense.