Second Wife is Sanctioned with Substantial Attorney Fees after Fraudulently Executing a New Deed and Two Codicils
In the will contest, undue influence and estate litigation case of In The Matter of The Estate of Folcher, App. Div., 38-2-4172, appellant, the decedent’s second wife, appealed the judgment awarding damages in favor of the estate after a finding of undue influence and that she fraudulently executed a new deed and two codicils that benefitted her. The panel held that it was readily apparent that the trial court’s decisions in favor of the estate were sufficiently consistent with the evidences adduced at the bench trial, finding that the decedent was clearly reliant on the wife and that there was substantial evidence supporting the trial court’s conclusions that the deed and two codicils were the product of suspicious circumstances. The panel also affirmed the award of substantial attorney fees, finding that but for the wife’s conduct , the litigation costs and expenses associated therewith would have been avoided, her fraud contributed to the erosion of the estate, and there is no just reason why she, like a corrupt fiduciary, should not make the estate whole and it rejected her claim that the court failed to properly scrutinize the actual attorney billings and that the total hours expended were in excess of what was reasonably required.
Reference: Case & Analysis, the New Jersey Law Journal, 216 N.J.L.J. 809 (June 16, 2014)
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