Appellate Division Reiterates the Standard for Standing to Contest the Validity of Wills
In re Estate of Carone, Docket Nos. A-0858-24, A-0860-24, 2025 WL 2731315 (N.J. Super. App. Div. Sept. 25, 2025)
The plaintiffs were the decedents’ grandsons. The standing of the plaintiffs was the focus as to their challenge to the decedents’ wills.
The decedents were married and had executed six reciprocal wills between 2007 and 2017. They died in in 2022 within weeks of each other.
The plaintiffs were named as beneficiaries in the 2007 and 2011 wills. The decedents had executed four later wills, in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
In 2019, the decedents drafted new wills disinheriting the plaintiffs but did not sign the wills until 2021. The 2021 wills revoked all prior wills and expressed the specific intention to leave nothing to the plaintiffs.
After his wife died, the husband/decedent executed a 2022 will that poured over into a trust; those documents followed the same provisions as the 2021 will.
One plaintiff had become estranged from the family in 2015. The other plaintiff had become estranged form the family due to his efforts to reconnect with his brother.
The plaintiffs sought to invalidate the final wills in counts for undue influence, lack of capacity and forgery. The plaintiffs alleged that they had a loving relationship with the decedents. They supported a 2006 will, which included them as beneficiaries.
The estates moved to dismiss, asserting the plaintiffs lacked standing since they would not inherit under intestacy laws if the wills were invalidated.
The trial court limited the trial to whether the 2006 will had been revoked by subsequent wills; if that were the case, the plaintiffs lacked standing.
The sole witness at trial was the attorney for the decedents, who recounted his longstanding relationship with the decedents and the counseling he provided in drafting their various wills between 2007 and 2022. He testified about the execution of multiple wills by the decedents, each containing revocation clauses for prior wills.
The trial court found attorney was credible, and that his testimony established the 2006 will was revoked by later wills. The court found that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The judge denied the plaintiffs’ motions for a directed verdict and reconsideration.
The Appellate Division rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that the trial court should have considered the entire gamut of wills over the years. The Appellate Division agreed with the trial court that the plaintiffs lacked standing. In a will contest, standing requires that the challenging party be aggrieved by the probate of the will, per R. 4:85-1. The plaintiffs failed to meet the standing requirement.