Are the Provisions in Your Florida Will or Contract Detailed and Clear Enough? July 20,2016 Fourth DCA Opinion

Uncategorized • Jul 21, 2016

What if multiple people interpret the same Florida trust differently? What if the language in a partnership agreement or Florida will is unclear? How do the Palm Beach and Martin County probate courts determine what the true meaning of a provision should be? A July 20,2016 Fourth DCA case , Ciklin Lubitz Martens & O’Connel v. Casey , displays the importance of writing clear and detailed wills, trusts, and contracts.

Writing a Palm Beach Probate Document

When an estate planning attorney prepares an estate plan for you, such as a will or revocable trust, they try their best to make the document clear.
One thing Florida trust and estates attorneys need to do is identify who’s going to inherit money and how much.
If there’s a trust, they have to tell the trustee what to do with income and principal.
Interpreting a Florida trust or will should be easy ,but a Delray Beach probate lawyer can tell you that, often, it’s not.
You can ask any probate litigator in Boca Raton if they frequently encounter construction actions.
They will tell you that it happens all of the time.
What is a construction action in Florida?
A construction action involves construing, or interpreting, what a written document says.
Construction actions occur to determine the meaning of contracts, deeds, marital settlement agreements, wills, trusts, etc.
In a construction action, one of the threshold issues is whether a provision is ambiguous or not.
A West Palm Beach trust and estates litigator can tell you that, just because two people look at a document and don’t agree with what it means, does not necessarily mean the document is ambiguous.
Most probate judges in Florida will read a document, or a provision, in a trust and tell you whether they believe it is ambiguous.
If the Palm Beach judge does not believe it is ambiguous, the judge will rule and tell you what he interprets the document or provision to mean.
However, if the document is ambiguous, a probate court judge is permitted to hear parole evidence, intrinsic evidence, testimony , etc. to determine what was intended by the parties when the document was drafted.

Ciklin Lubitz Martens & O’Connel v. Casey

This was a Fourth DCA case regarding a partnership agreement.
Here, a “partner’s withdrawal from the law firm was governed by the terms of the applicable partnership agreement.”
Although this is not a probate litigation case, this case provides useful information about how the court interprets documents.
In it’s analysis, the court states that “the interpretation of a written contract is a question of law and the appellate court construes the contract under de novo standard of review.”
What does this mean?
To read the entire case, and find out what the appellate court decided, click here.