Gilmore v. Harte

Before his death on October 5, 1995, at the age of ninety-five, Martin Leo Coyne (the decedent) executed a will naming Mr. John B. Harte, the petitioner for probate of the document, as executor.

The will, signed on July 2, 1990, left the decedent’s entire estate “to the then trustee of an Indenture of Trust,” which was created at the same time. When the will (without the trust instrument) was offered for probate, the decedent’s nephew Arthur E. Gilmore, Jr., pursuant to Probate Court Rule 16 (1987), see Wimberly v. Jones, 26 Mass. App. Ct. 944, 945 n.4 (1988), appeared in opposition to the…