The Yona Matter
- In the Engelman case, a non-assault clause (objection to the very validity of the will was discussed). The judgment given there did not deal with the distinction between non-assault clauses and non-claim clauses, nor did it qualify the precedent set forth therein for a specific type of dismissal clause. The other case that came before this court was the Yona case. In contrast to the Engelman case, in the Yona case, a claim that attacked the mass of the estate was discussed, i.e., a claim that is perceived as a "non-claim" type of dismissal clause.
- In that case, the deceased drafted a will according to which the beneficiaries were his own children (hereinafter: the children), his spouse and his spouse's daughters. The deceased also left behind his wife, the mother of his children, who was not included as the beneficiary in the will (hereinafter: the mother). The deceased included in his will a stipulation clause in which it was written as follows: "Anyone who objects to the execution of this will or to execute it for any reason - will automatically lose all his rights under this will, and will not receive anything." The mother filed a lawsuit in which she claimed that half of the property bequeathed by the deceased to his spouse belonged to her. In the order of the trial court, the children were added to the mother's claim as defendants. The children did not file statements of defense on their behalf in their mother's claim. The spouse argued that the children's failure to defend themselves against their mother's lawsuit amounts to opposition to the execution of the will or its execution - an act that contradicts the stipulation of dismissal, and therefore it should be applied to the children and paid from their share of the estate.
- At the beginning of her ruling, Justice T. Strasberg-Cohen, joined by Justices Levin andA. Matza, reviewed what had been ruled in the Engelman case, and against this background she ruled that the disposal clause in the deceased's will does not contradict public policy and should be given effect. Subsequently, Justice Strasberg-Cohen examined the question "whether the attack on the scope of the estate and the mass of its assets is an objection to the execution of the will or its execution" (see: Yona case, at paragraph 12). To this question, Justice Strasberg-Cohen replied that an attack on the mass of the estate can be considered an objection to the execution and execution of a will. In this context, Justice Strasberg-Cohen noted that:
"The use of the expression 'will object' in the will is not necessarily correlated to the expression of opposition to the fulfillment of a will in the law, and we do not interpret the [disposal clause] in the will according to the division of the issues and procedures that the Inheritance Law handles, but rather [according to] the will of the testator and his opinion, which are the cornerstone for the interpretation of the will, which are the guidelines as to the content in which the disposal clause must be fulfilled. Tracing the testator's intention shows that he intended to exclude from the inheritance anyone who would try to harm the delicate mosaic that he had assembled, to change the balance of distribution that he saw fit to distribute, and to interfere with this or that heir from receiving the property that he had bequeathed to him [...] An attack on the mass of the estate by one of the heirs according to the will is an attempt to thwart the will of the deceased, and in order to thwart such a thwart he conditioned the dismissal clause, with which the deceased sought to prevent his children, his heirs, from attacking his clear and explicit wish" (see: Yona, at paragraphs 14-16; emphases added - A.S.).
- It was further held that while filing a claim in relation to the mass of the estate may give effect to the dismissal clause, in the case discussed there, the children's actions - which were expressed in their failure to defend themselves against their mother's claim - do not constitute filing a claim on their behalf or attacking the mass of the estate by them; and therefore their actions are not considered an objection to the execution or execution of the will, contrary to the dismissal clause.
- Justice Strasberg-Cohen further ruled - at an important point in our matter - that even if she had believed that the children's actions constituted an objection to the execution of the will (and this was not what she determined), she would have ruled that their claim does not apply the stipulation of dismissal against them.
This is because: