Revocation of a Will. Myrtle Courziel executed a valid will that provided for the estab-lishment of a scholarship fund designed to encourage the study of corrosion as it affects metal-lurgical engineering. The recipients were to be students in the upper

Question

half of their classes at the University of Alabama. Subsequently, Courziel died. John Calhoun, the eventual administrator of her estate, obtained access to Courziel's safe-deposit box to search for her will. He found the will intact, except that the last page of the will, which had contained Courziel's signature and the signatures of the witnesses, had been removed from the document and was not in the safe-deposit box or anywhere else to be found. Because Courziel had had sole control over the will, should it be presumed that by removing the last page of the will (or allowing it to be removed), she effectively revoked the will?

Answer 1

Revocation of a will
Yes. The court held that Myrtle had revoked her will. To effectuate a revocation of a will (1) there must be performance of one or more of the specified acts to a degree that materially and permanently destroys the efficacy of the document, and (2) the testator must intend for the act to revoke the will. One of the essential elements of a validly executed will is the signature of the testator. "The act of the testator in cutting out, erasing, or otherwise obliterating his signature on the instrument, or the removal of the signature page, is sufficient to revoke the entire will when performed with such intent." The fact that the signature page of the will was detached and missing created a rebuttable presumption of revocation. When the will is in the testator's possession, and is not found at his or her death, the presumption arises that he or she destroyed it for the purpose of revocation. In the present case, the will was in Myrtle's possession and control; therefore, it is presumed that the missing signature page was removed and destroyed with the intention of revoking the will. The trustees failed to rebut the presumption of revocation, and Myrtle's will was held to be effectively revoked.