Your father’s will says anybody who contests it gets nothing. Lawyers call that an in terrorem clause, and the Latin is honest about the goal. It’s supposed to scare you.
In Minnesota, in a will, it mostly doesn’t get to. The probate code has refused to enforce that clause against a contest brought with probable cause since at least 1992, and the Minnesota Supreme Court got there on its own in 1956.
Now move the identical sentence into a revocable trust, which is where a lot of Minnesota families keep the money these days. On February 23, 2026, the Court of Appeals held that a daughter lost her entire share of her father’s trust by filing a petition that asked a judge whether the no-contest clause was valid. She didn’t win a contest and then get punished. She asked the question, and asking was the violation.
What does Minnesota’s no-contest statute actually say?
One sentence:
A provision in a will purporting to penalize an interested person for contesting the will or instituting other proceedings relating to the estate is unenforceable if probable cause exists for instituting proceedings.
— Minn. Stat. § 524.2-517
It doesn’t ban the clause. A Minnesota will can carry a no-contest clause, and against a contest brought without probable cause, the clause can be enforced. The statute carves out the contest that had a real basis and leaves the rest of the clause standing.
It reaches past the will contest. “[I]nstituting other proceedings relating to the estate” covers more ground than a fight over capacity or undue influence. And “interested person” is defined broadly too: heirs, devisees, children, spouses, creditors, beneficiaries, and anyone else with a property right in or claim against the estate that the proceeding may affect. § 524.1-201(34).
And it says “a will”. A codicil counts, § 524.1-201(62). A trust doesn’t. Hold that thought.
The sentence isn’t new. The Legislature enacted it at § 524.2-517 in 1994, effective January 1, 1996, for decedents dying on or after that date, and the same act repealed § 524.3-905, which said nearly the same thing. 1994 Minn. Laws ch. 472, §§ 47, 64, 65. The Uniform Probate Code carries the identical rule, and its official comment to § 2-517 is a model of brevity: “This section replicates Section 3-905.” If you were hoping the uniform drafters defined “probable cause” for you, they didn’t.
Minnesota decided this before the statute did
In 1956, the Minnesota Supreme Court had a will that left the residue and most of the estate to the testator’s housekeeper, with smaller bequests to his cousins and a clause that read: “Should any legatee herein directly or indirectly contest the validity of this Will and Testament in any manner,” the contestant’s bequest went to a Catholic church in Mazeppa. In re Estate of Hartz, 247 Minn. 362, 363, 77 N.W.2d 169 (1956). The cousins contested anyway on undue influence and lack of capacity, and they lost. Id. at 363–64.
The court admitted it was writing on a clean slate: “Prior hereto this court has not had occasion to consider the application and effect of a forfeiture clause such as here involved.” Id. at 364. It then looked at the split around the country and picked the majority rule: the clause is valid, but it won’t be enforced against a beneficiary who brought the contest “in good faith and with probable cause to believe that the will was invalid.” Id. at 364, 366. The trial court had found exactly that, so the cousins kept their bequests even though they’d lost the contest. Id. at 366–67.
Look at when the probable-cause question got decided. Whether the cousins had good faith and probable cause wasn’t decided in the will contest at all. It came up afterward, at distribution, when the estate tried to cut them out. The court noted that those questions were never presented in the contest, and “[i]t is doubtful if evidence bearing thereon would have been admissible therein.” Id. at 367. So the order of events is: you contest, you lose, and then you litigate whether you had the right to try. Plan your file around that second fight from day one.
And notice the gap between the case and the statute. Hartz asked about good faith and probable cause. Section 524.2-517 asks only whether “probable cause exists”. For a will, the statute is the rule. For anything the statute doesn’t reach, the argument runs through Hartz, and Hartz carries the good-faith element with it.
How much of a case is “probable cause”?
Less than a winning one. Beyond that, Minnesota hasn’t said. I couldn’t find a Minnesota appellate decision defining probable cause under § 524.2-517 or its predecessor. I searched CourtListener and the open web for the statute numbers, “in terrorem”, “no-contest”, “penalty clause”, and “forfeiture clause”. The only Minnesota decisions applying a will’s penalty clause that turned up were Hartz and Vittorio, below, and neither defines the term.
Other states have filled in the blank, and the definition they keep using comes from the Restatement (Second) of Property. The Arizona Supreme Court quoted it when it applied Arizona’s copy of the same uniform statute. Probable cause is
the existence, at the time of the initiation of the proceeding, of evidence which would lead a reasonable person, properly informed and advised, to conclude that there is a substantial likelihood that the contest or attack will be successful.
Estate of Shumway v. Gavette, 198 Ariz. 323, 327, 9 P.3d 1062 (Ariz. 2000) (emphasis omitted) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Property: Donative Transfers § 9.1 cmt. j (1983)). The same comment adds: “A factor which bears on the existence of probable cause is that the beneficiary relied upon the advice of disinterested counsel sought in good faith after a full disclosure of the facts.” Id. (emphasis omitted).
Look at “at the time of the initiation of the proceeding”. The question is what you knew when you filed, not how the trial came out. The Arizona court said it straight: “the definition of probable cause does not require certainty of success.” Id. at 329. It’s Arizona law, not binding here. But no Minnesota court has offered anything else, and Shumway reports that Colorado, Kansas, and Nevada courts had already adopted the same Restatement definition. Id. at 327.
That’s also why the order of operations matters. A contestant who walks into a lawyer’s office, lays out everything, and gets a written opinion before filing has built the record a probable-cause argument runs on. One who files first and asks later hasn’t.
The clause doesn’t have to say “contest”
In 1994, a father learned he was dying. He signed a will and, the same day, put his real estate into joint tenancy with his son. The will said the son would distribute that property as the father had instructed him. According to the son, one of those instructions was that he could keep it all if his sisters “fought him or were too demanding”.
The Court of Appeals called that what it was. The instruction “does constitute a forfeiture clause”, even though it punished “less formal action than that described in the statute,” and the court wasn’t going to let the wording save it: “We agree with respondent that form should not be elevated over substance”. The instruction that the son keep everything “if his sisters fought him or were too demanding is unenforceable”. In re Estate of Vittorio, 546 N.W.2d 751, 756–57 (Minn. Ct. App. 1996) (applying § 524.3-905 (1992)).
I like that case because it’s how these things usually show up in real families. Not as a polished clause in Article Fourteen. As a side deal, a “Dad told me”, a sentence everyone heard at the hospital. In a will, Minnesota treats the side deal like the clause it is.
Now put the same clause in a trust
Here’s where the bluff stops being a bluff.
Section 524.2-517 is about “a provision in a will”. The Minnesota Trust Code, chapter 501C, has no counterpart. I read the chapter end to end, and it doesn’t contain one. Neither does the Uniform Trust Code it’s based on, even though the uniform drafters’ own prefatory note describes their basic policy as “to treat the revocable trust as the functional equivalent of a will.” Functional equivalent, except for this.
The Legislature wrote the will rule in 1994. It enacted the whole trust code in 2015. Twenty-one years to notice that families had moved their money into trusts, and the safe harbor didn’t make the trip.
Two Court of Appeals decisions have filled the gap, and both went the clause’s way.
The 2022 case. In In re B.C. Fox Trust, the parties agreed that chapter 501C “does not contain any provision governing a no-contest clause in a trust agreement”, so the court held the dispute was “governed solely by the terms” of the trust. No. A21-0770, slip op. at 8 (Minn. Ct. App. Apr. 11, 2022). The clause there reached a beneficiary who “directly or indirectly contests the validity of this trust or the distributions thereof in any manner”. Id. at 7. One brother had gotten a dying brother to sign an amendment to a different trust, steering to himself assets that were coming out of their father’s trust; a California court later voided the amendment as financial elder abuse. Id. at 4–7. The Court of Appeals held that was an indirect contest of the father’s trust, and it refused to read “indirectly” as limited to the Restatement’s example of helping someone else file. Id. at 12–14. Nobody in Fox asked whether probable cause mattered. On those facts, nobody would.
The 2026 case. In re Gus A. Chafoulias Revocable Trust is the one that should change how you think about these clauses. The trust’s clause treats a beneficiary as if she “predeceased me without leaving any surviving descendants” if she “seeks to obtain adjudication in any court proceeding that a Document or any of its provisions is void, or otherwise seeks to void, nullify, or set aside a Document or any of its provisions”. No. A25-0665, slip op. at 3–4 (Minn. Ct. App. Feb. 23, 2026).
The daughter alleged that her brother, as trustee, had taken almost $17 million in loans from the trust without repaying any of it, left gold bars and artwork off the inventory, and made one distribution to her between 2020 and 2024. Id. at 4. Those were allegations, taken as true because the case was decided on the pleadings. She first petitioned to remove him. Then she amended, dropping the removal demand and asking the court instead to declare whether the no-contest clause was valid and whether a removal petition would trigger it. Id. at 4–5.
Both requests triggered the clause. The court read it to mean that “a beneficiary who initiates a court proceeding contesting the validity or enforceability of a trust provision trips the no-contest clause”, id. at 7, and her request for a ruling on the clause’s validity was exactly that, id. at 8–9. Asking whether a removal petition would set it off counted too, because the court read that request as an attempt to get around the trust’s limits on removing her brother. Id. at 13.
Then she argued for the will rule. Two routes. Section 501C.0112 says “[t]he rules of construction that apply in this state to the interpretation of and disposition of property by will also apply as appropriate to the interpretation of the terms of a trust and the disposition of the trust property.” The court held the probable-cause exception isn’t a rule of construction: it “does not establish a rule for construing no-contest clauses in wills, it identifies scenarios where otherwise-valid no-contest clauses will not be given effect.” Id. at 10. Section 501C.0106 says “[t]he common law of trusts and principles of equity supplement this chapter, except to the extent modified by this chapter or another law of this state.” The court acknowledged she had “strong arguments grounded in good authority”, but held that “the decision to extend the trust code in this way is for the legislature or supreme court.” Id. at 12. And earlier on the same page: “it is not our role to extend the law.” Id.
Don’t treat that as the law of Minnesota yet. Both Fox and Chafoulias are nonprecedential opinions. Under the appellate rules they “are not binding authority except as law of the case, res judicata or collateral estoppel, but nonprecedential opinions may be cited as persuasive authority.” Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c). And the Rochester Post Bulletin reported on September 25, 2026 that the Minnesota Supreme Court will hear argument in Chafoulias on November 9, 2026. The court the Court of Appeals pointed to is about to get the question.
| A clause in a will | A clause in a trust | |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | § 524.2-517: unenforceable if probable cause exists | None in ch. 501C |
| Minnesota case law | Hartz (1956): good faith and probable cause; Vittorio (1996): side instructions count | Fox (2022) and Chafoulias (2026), both nonprecedential: enforced as written; Chafoulias refused a probable-cause exception |
| What has triggered it | A contest brought without probable cause | An indirect scheme through another trust; a petition asking whether the clause is valid |
| Pending | Nothing | Chafoulias, Minnesota Supreme Court, argument set for November 9, 2026 (per the Post Bulletin) |
Why “I’ll leave you a dollar” doesn’t work
The no-contest clause has a built-in weakness that no statute created. It can only take away what the document gives.
Leave a child a dollar and add a no-contest clause, and the clause threatens a dollar. Leave a child nothing, and it threatens nothing. That child is an heir who stands to take an intestate share or a share under an earlier will if this one falls, so the clause has handed the person most likely to sue every reason to do it and no reason not to. The disinheritance did the provoking; the clause has no grip.
Hartz shows what a working clause looks like. The cousins had real bequests on the line, and the clause said exactly where those bequests went if they lost: to the church. A clause bites when the beneficiary has something worth keeping and the document names where it goes if they forfeit. Fox’s clause sent a forfeited share to “ratably augment the shares of the other beneficiaries”, slip op. at 7, and Chafoulias’s treated the beneficiary as dead without descendants. Both answer the question a court will ask.
If you’re writing one
In a will, the clause stops the contest without probable cause, which is precisely the contest you wanted stopped. The Arizona court listed the reasons the law tolerates these clauses at all: “preserving the transferor’s donative intent, avoiding waste of the estate in litigation, and avoiding use of a will contest to coerce a more favorable settlement to a dissatisfied beneficiary.” Shumway, 198 Ariz. at 326. For a parent with one child who’s always going to be unhappy, that’s real value. Fund the bequest so the child has something to lose.
In a trust, the 2026 decision says you can go much further, all the way to punishing a beneficiary for asking a court a question. I’d draft as though the Supreme Court might not agree. A clause that keeps a beneficiary from ever checking on the trustee doesn’t just block meritless fights. It also blocks the one person with a reason to notice when something has gone wrong. If the goal is to keep the family out of court, Chafoulias’s trust also routed disputes to mediation, arbitration, and a named trust advisor, slip op. at 3, and a nonjudicial settlement agreement settles many trust questions without anybody filing anything.
If you’re on the receiving end of one
Read the trigger words before you file anything, including anything you think is “just a question”. A will clause, in Minnesota, yields to probable cause. A trust clause, right now, means what it says, and Chafoulias says a petition for a ruling on the clause can be the violation.
Know which document holds the money. If the estate is mostly in a trust, the trust-contest clock is likely shorter than you think, and the clause is the stronger of the two. If it’s a will, who pays the lawyers shapes the case before anybody gets to capacity. And if the real complaint is the trustee’s conduct rather than the document, removal has its own grounds, though after Chafoulias you read the no-contest clause before you file for it, not after.
In a Minnesota will, a no-contest clause scares off the weak case. In a Minnesota trust, for now, it can scare off the strong one too.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC drafts Minnesota wills and revocable trusts, and I handle will contests and trust contests on both sides: capacity and undue-influence claims, defective amendments, and the trustee-side work of closing a contest window properly. More on the planning side is on our trusts and estate planning page. If you’re deciding whether a no-contest clause belongs in your plan, or you’re holding a will or trust with one in it and wondering what it costs you to ask questions, send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 524.2-517 (penalty clause for contest; unenforceable if probable cause exists; by its terms a provision “in a will”); 1994 Minn. Laws ch. 472, § 47 (enacting § 524.2-517), § 64 (repealing Minn. Stat. § 524.3-905 (1992)), § 65(a)–(b)(1) (effective January 1, 1996; applies to decedents dying on or after that date); Minn. Stat. § 524.1-201(34) (“interested person”), (62) (“will” includes a codicil); Minn. Stat. § 501C.0106 (common law of trusts and principles of equity supplement the chapter); Minn. Stat. § 501C.0112 (rules of construction for wills apply as appropriate to trusts); Minn. Stat. ch. 501C (no penalty-clause provision); Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c) (nonprecedential opinions not binding; citable as persuasive authority); Unif. Probate Code § 2-517 & cmt. (Unif. Law Comm’n, last amended 2019); Unif. Trust Code, Prefatory Note, art. 6 summary (Unif. Law Comm’n 2023 ed.); In re Estate of Hartz, 247 Minn. 362, 363–67, 77 N.W.2d 169 (1956) (clause text at 363; first consideration of a forfeiture clause and the majority rule at 364; adoption at 366; application at 366–67; good faith and probable cause not litigated in the contest, at 367); In re Estate of Vittorio, 546 N.W.2d 751, 756–57 (Minn. Ct. App. 1996) (side instruction a forfeiture clause, unenforceable under § 524.3-905 (1992)); In re B.C. Fox Trust, No. A21-0770, slip op. at 4–8, 12–14 (Minn. Ct. App. Apr. 11, 2022) (nonprecedential) (clause text at 7; ch. 501C has no no-contest provision and the trust’s terms govern, at 8; indirect contest, at 12–14); In re Gus A. Chafoulias Revocable Trust, No. A25-0665, slip op. at 3–5, 7–10, 12–13 (Minn. Ct. App. Feb. 23, 2026) (nonprecedential) (clause and allegations at 3–5; trigger at 7–9; § 501C.0112 at 10; § 501C.0106 and extension left to the legislature or supreme court at 12; second request at 13); Post Bulletin (Rochester, Minn.), “Minnesota Supreme Court to hear Chafoulias case” (Sept. 25, 2026) (oral argument November 9, 2026); Estate of Shumway v. Gavette, 198 Ariz. 323, 326–29, 9 P.3d 1062 (Ariz. 2000) (policy reasons at 326; probable-cause definition and disinterested-counsel factor quoting Restatement (Second) of Property: Donative Transfers § 9.1 cmt. j (1983), at 327; certainty of success not required, at 329). This article is general information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.