Abstract
Recent revisions to the Uniform Probate Code would simplify will formalities and give courts greater discretion to validate defectively executed wills. The revisers predict that those reforms would eliminate the injustice resulting from courts' inability to excuse "harmless errors" in will execution due to the supposed judicial tradition of requiring strict compliance with formalities. Professor Leslie argues that the reforms are misguided to the extent that they assume that courts liberated from the strict compliance doctrine will seek primarily to effectuate testators' intentions. Rather, she argues, courts traditionally have imposed upon testators a moral duty to prefer closest relatives or dependents over others, and have implemented that duty through the manipulation of doctrine, sometimes even while asserting that their primary objective is to effectuate intent. If courts are indeed significantly more ambivalent about effectuating intent than is generally acknowledged, then the proposed reforms will do little to achieve the reformers' desired result-the validation of a greater number of documents intended-to be wills. Rather, courts will simply find other means for implementing the moral norms that have traditionally competed with testamentary freedom.
How to Cite
38 Ariz. L. Rev. 235 (1996)
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