The Aftermath of a Successful Louisiana Will Contest

Contesting a Will in Louisiana

A will contest is technically a lawsuit. Since a will is representative of the deceased person’s last wishes, Louisiana only lets certain interested parties initiate litigation.

In general, the only parties who can contest the provisions of a will are the following:

• People with a compelling interest in the will, including named heirs, disinherited beneficiaries, and creditors
• People who, under ordinary circumstances, would have a legal right to inherit the decedent’s assets through probate or intestacy proceedings

When you challenge the validity or provisions of a Louisianan’s last will and testament, you are—in effect—claiming the will was not executed in accordance with state law.

The Grounds for Challenging an Estate

• Undue influence. The person writing the will, or testator, must freely create the will on their own. If the testator was coerced or misled into writing a will or creating a codicil to a will, the will could be contested on the grounds of undue influence.
• Improper execution. A will is only valid if it was executed in accordance with state law. Louisiana only permits the execution of notarial wills, or wills that are typed and stamped by a notary public, and olographic wills, or wills that are written entirely in the testator’s own handwriting. If any of the formal, legal requirements for executing a will are not met, the will or any amendments could be dismissed entirely.
• Lack of mental capacity. Louisiana law presumes that most adults of sound mind have the right to write a will and make other estate-related decisions. However, if the testator does not understand how their will could affect their assets or impact their estate, they may lack the so-called testamentary capacity needed to execute a Louisiana will.

Under most circumstances, the burden of proof is on the person initiating the will contest.

The Aftermath of a Successful Will Contest

• The will could be reformed. When a Louisiana succession court adjudicates a will contest, they have a legal obligation to respect the intent of the testator. If the will contest relates to a single line in the testament or is otherwise easily addressed by a simple amendment, the court may elect to strike the line without restructuring or reforming the entire document.
• The will could be replaced. If a new or updated will has been located, the court may allow the decedent’s personal representative to commence probate in accordance with the terms and conditions of the alternate will.
• The will could be revoked. If the contest results in the will being revoked, and there is no alternate will available, the probate court may be forced to enter the estate into intestacy. In other words, the deceased person’s estate will be treated as if they had no will and no estate plan. Intestacy can be disastrous for heirs, since the Bayou State’s Code of Civil Procedure mandates that intestate assets be distributed to beneficiaries in accordance with a strict legal formula. In most cases, this legal formula privileges surviving spouses and other close relatives, even at the expense of adopted children, surviving parents, and other loved ones.

Contact a Louisiana Estate Litigation Attorney

The consequences of a will contest must be carefully considered well in advance of filing a lawsuit against the estate. If you believe that a relative’s will contains a critical error or omission, ensure that you are afforded the best protection from uncertainty: call Scott Law Group – Estate Counsel at 504-264-1057 today to speak to a legal professional to schedule your initial consultation. 

What Happens When a Louisiana Will Is Voided

When a court grants a successful will contest in Louisiana, the challenged will — or the portion of it that was successfully challenged — is declared void and of no legal effect. The consequence of that ruling depends on whether a prior valid will exists and whether the voided will was entirely invalidated or only partially so. If the entire will is voided and no prior valid will exists, the estate is distributed under Louisiana’s intestate succession rules, as if the testator had died without any will at all. The distribution that results from intestate succession may look very different from what any of the parties expected — the successful challenger does not get to design a new distribution scheme.

When a prior valid will exists — for example, when the testator had an earlier will that was superseded by the will that was successfully contested — the earlier will may be resurrected. A will that was revoked by a subsequent will that is now voided may be revived, restoring the earlier testamentary plan. Whether and to what extent the earlier will is revived depends on Louisiana law regarding revocation and revival of prior wills. The succession attorney must analyze the full history of the testator’s testamentary documents to determine which document, if any, governs after the contest succeeds.

A partial success — voiding only specific provisions of a will while leaving others intact — produces a more complex result. The court’s ruling may void a specific bequest that was the product of undue influence while leaving the rest of the will valid. The voided bequest then falls into the residuary estate (governed by the residuary clause) or, if the residuary clause was also voided, into the intestate succession scheme. Partial voiding requires careful analysis of how the surviving provisions interact with the voided ones and whether any of the surviving provisions depend on the voided ones in a way that affects their validity or interpretation.

The Financial Reality of a Successful Will Contest

A successful will contest rarely produces the financial windfall that challengers imagine. The costs of the litigation — attorney fees, expert witness fees, court costs, and the administrative costs of conducting the succession under judicial supervision — are paid from the estate before any distribution is made. These costs can be substantial, particularly for a contested proceeding that required extensive discovery, expert testimony, and a trial. The estate that reaches the distribution stage after a will contest has already been significantly reduced by the litigation expenses that all sides incurred in reaching that point.

The distribution resulting from a successful contest may also not be what the challenger anticipated. If the successful challenger was an intestate heir but received no bequest under the voided will, they now inherit their intestate share — which may be shared with other intestate heirs who had no role in the litigation. A person who contested the will hoping to receive the entire estate may instead receive one-third or one-quarter of what remains after litigation costs, distributed equally with siblings or other relatives. The realistic calculation of what a successful contest actually yields, after costs and after sharing with other heirs, is an important part of the pre-litigation analysis a will contest attorney performs.

Tax implications also deserve consideration. In some cases, the manner in which the estate is ultimately distributed after a successful will contest may have federal estate tax or income tax implications that differ from the tax treatment of the original will’s distribution scheme. When the estate is large enough that taxes are a significant factor, the tax consequences of contesting the will versus accepting the distribution should be analyzed by both a succession attorney and a tax advisor as part of the decision-making process.

Family Dynamics After a Contested Succession

The aftermath of a will contest often includes lasting damage to family relationships that may be more significant than the financial outcome. A will contest pits family members against each other in formal, adversarial legal proceedings where each side is committed to winning and where the testimony and documents produced during litigation may reveal painful family history that everyone might have preferred to keep private. Family members who were named as beneficiaries in the contested will — and who successfully defended it — often have enduring resentment toward the challengers. Siblings, cousins, and others who might have maintained cordial relationships despite inheritance disappointments often find that the litigation itself permanently damaged the relationship.

Mediation — even after a will contest succeeds — can be a valuable tool for managing the aftermath. If the estate’s distribution results from the combination of the court’s ruling and intestate succession law rather than the testator’s expressed wishes, the parties may have flexibility to negotiate a different arrangement among themselves. All heirs in a Louisiana succession can agree to distribute the estate differently than the law requires, as long as the agreement is properly documented. A mediated agreement that everyone can accept — even if no one is fully satisfied — may produce better long-term outcomes for the family than insisting that every dollar be distributed exactly as the court’s ruling requires.

The most important lesson from the aftermath of a contested succession is that estate planning — done carefully and thoughtfully, with a skilled attorney, and updated regularly as circumstances change — is far less painful and far less expensive than the litigation that results when it is absent or inadequate. A will that clearly reflects the testator’s intentions, is properly executed, and has been carefully prepared to withstand legal challenge is the best protection against will contest litigation. The cost of this planning is a fraction of the cost of the litigation, for both the estate and the family relationships, that contested successions produce.