Despite popular belief, will contests are actually quite rare. But most people would like to make sure there is no contest of their own will, and clients often ask their lawyers to write their wills so that no one can contest the document. While there may be ways to reduce the likelihood of a contest, there is no way to completely prevent a will contest—as the story of Sinbad, the 18-year-old Siamese cat, attests.

Ruth Lovett wrote her will in 1989. "All my life I have been an animal lover, and specifically had cats as my friends and companions," she wrote. That was why she left most of her estate to the Erie County Humane Society, provided that it agreed to take care of Sinbad. Besides, she wrote, her relatives didn’t need her money.

When Ms. Lovett died seven years later her bequest to the Humane Society amounted to $325,000. The Humane Society soon figured out that Sinbad’s kidneys were failing, and he was euthanized three months later.

Fourteen relatives challenged Ms. Lovett’s will. They argued that she had been confused and on medication when she signed the will, and that the document had been altered. The probate court threw out their contest, but an appellate court ruled that they had made enough of a showing that a trial should be held.

At trial the jury took two hours to decide that Ms. Lovett’s relatives had not shown that the will was invalid. The disappointed relatives appealed again, but the appellate court upheld the jury’s verdict.

That didn’t stop the challenges, however. Next some of the same relatives filed a new action claiming that Ms. Lovett had really created a trust for Sinbad, and that upon the cat’s death the trust terminated. Under this theory, the Humane Society should be required to distribute the remaining funds to family members. The trial judge threw this new challenge out, and the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed.

Not yet deterred, the relatives mounted another challenge. This time they filed a request for a court declaration that the alleged trust for Sinbad’s benefit failed with his death, and that the estate’s executor should never have given the money to the Humane Society. The executor moved for summary judgment, the court agreed that the issues had already been fully litigated, and the Ohio Court of Appeals, in its fourth review of Ms. Lovett’s will, agreed that there was no basis for this latest litigation. The court remanded the case for a consideration of sanctions against the relatives. Bevier v. Pfefferle, February 24, 2006.

What could Ms. Lovett have done to prevent her family’s challenges to her will? Not much, as it turns out. She could have disinherited anyone who filed a challenge, but since she had already disinherited her relatives the threat would not have been very serious.

The Ohio courts ruled that Ms. Lovett had not established a trust for Sinbad, but there is an interesting bit of history behind that concept. Trusts for the benefit of pets were not possible under American (and English) common law. Because a trust for a pet had no human or charitable beneficiary, it and similar trusts were known as "honorary trusts" and could be voided by the remainder beneficiary. With the adoption of the Uniform Probate Code in Arizona (and seventeen other states, as of 2006), however, a trust for Sinbad would be entirely permissible. Unfortunately for Ms. Lovett, Ohio is not one of the states which has implemented the Uniform Probate Code and its "Pet Trust" provisions.

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