Q: is a will valid if the signer is drunk?
a family friend died of alcoholism 45 years ago. A week before he died, he drunkenly had his attorney draw up his will disinheriting his wife because he was in a spiteful mood, which happened frequently between him & his friends & family. He left everything to his mother, or to his estranged nephew if his mother predeceased. He was nearly penniless when he died. His widow continued to care for his bedridden mother until she passed. Then she managed his estate, as she had been doing even when he was alive, turning it into an entity worth many millions of dollars. Now an ex-friend's children are trying to re-open his will in order to retrieve a letter written by their father to him. It is worth a great deal of money, but as a letter, was owned by him, not the man who wrote it to him. This is a literary battle involving bailment & copyright. Do the non-relatives have the right to re-open the will?
A: This is the type of circumstance that will have to be thoroughly investigated by an attorney. It depends upon the facts and what you have given is nowhere near enough to make any legal conclusions.
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