Elliot Goldman died in 1995 in Tucson. He left an estate worth a little over $2.5 million and somewhat complicated instructions. His will directed that trusts should be established for each of his two children, other property and cash should go to his wife, and smaller (but substantial) sums to his brother, business manager and cousin. Then the will directed that a total of $100,000 be distributed to four local charities, with one—the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona—to receive $50,000 of that amount. Anything left over was to be added to the trusts for his children.

Interpreting Mr. Goldman’s will became more complicated when his estate was valued at less than the total of all of those bequests of individual assets and dollar amounts. It may not have been clear at first, since the amounts directed to his children’s trusts were to be reduced by the value of any life insurance naming them as beneficiary. Administration of the estate took nearly a decade, and that led to the second confusing element.

Although there had not been enough money to pay the Jewish Foundation and the other charities at the time of Mr. Goldman’s death, his estate included real estate in the Tucson area. Because that property had substantially appreciated before the estate was closed, by 2003 there was enough money to pay the Foundation’s bequest.

Rather than pay the $50,000 the Personal Representative argued that the estate should be valued at the date of death for purposes of calculating distributions, and the bequest should therefore “abate.” That would mean that nothing would go to the Foundation or any of the other charities. The Foundation argued that there was now money enough to pay the bequest, and asked the probate court to order that the estate not only pay up, but also pay interest from the time after the first anniversary of Mr. Goldman’s death, as required by the probate law.

The probate judge agreed and ordered the payment to be made. The estate appealed, and the Arizona Court of Appeals also agreed with the instruction to pay. Abatement, ruled the appellate court, should be calculated on the basis of value at the time of distribution, not at the time of the decedent’s death. Estate of Goldman, May 30, 2007.

The back-story may make the will contest more interesting. Mr. Goldman’s estate had made distributions to the other charities as the value of the estate grew, and had even distributed some of the excess to the trusts for his children. The Personal Representative apparently did not think that the bequest was large enough to permanently endow an annual trip to Israel as Mr. Goldman had intended, and so had tried to avoid funding the bequest.

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