The first question in a Minnesota will contest isn’t whether Mom had capacity. It’s who pays for the fight. That answer decides whether the case gets tried at all, and Minnesota’s answer tilts hard toward one side.
Here’s Minn. Stat. § 524.3-720:
Any personal representative or person nominated as personal representative who defends or prosecutes any proceeding in good faith, whether successful or not, or any interested person who successfully opposes the allowance of a will, is entitled to receive from the estate necessary expenses and disbursements including reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred.
Put the two halves side by side. A person nominated as personal representative under any will recovers fees from the estate if he litigated in good faith. Win or lose. An interested person who isn’t a nominated representative recovers only if he successfully opposes the will.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals confirmed how far the first half reaches in In re Estate of Torgersen, 711 N.W.2d 545 (Minn. Ct. App. 2006). The appellant had been nominated under a 1978 will that hadn’t been admitted. He objected to the 2002 will and lost on both undue influence and capacity. The district court denied him fees because he wasn’t the personal representative. Reversed:
This provision allows not only personal representatives to recover attorney fees, but also specifically allows “nominated” personal representatives to recover, whether or not the will in which they are nominated is admitted to probate.
Id. at 554–55. The court sent it back only for findings on good faith and on whether the fees were reasonable, and it noted that whether a challenger acted in good faith “is a question of fact.”
So the person named as executor in an older will can contest a newer one, lose, and still have the estate pay his lawyer. That’s a real imbalance. I raise it in the first client meeting on either side of the case, because it changes what the case is worth before anybody sits for a deposition.
Who has to prove what?
Section 524.3-407 hands out the burdens, and most people are surprised by where they land:
In contested cases, petitioners who seek to establish intestacy have the burden of establishing prima facie proof of death, venue and heirship. Proponents of a will have the burden of establishing prima facie proof of due execution in all cases … Contestants of a will have the burden of establishing lack of testamentary intent or capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, mistake or revocation. Parties have the ultimate burden of persuasion as to matters with respect to which they have the initial burden of proof.
The proponent proves only due execution, and only to a prima facie standard. Everything that actually matters in a contest (capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, mistake, revocation) is the contestant’s job, at the start and at the finish.
That small burden gets smaller if the will was self-proved. Under § 524.3-406(b), “compliance with signature requirements for execution is conclusively presumed and other requirements of execution are presumed subject to rebuttal without the testimony of any witness,” absent proof of fraud or forgery affecting the acknowledgment or affidavit. A self-proved will pretty much carries the proponent’s § 524.3-407 burden on paper. See what the self-proving affidavit actually buys.
The last sentence of § 524.3-407 sets the order of trial: “If a will is opposed by the petition for probate of a later will revoking the former, it shall be determined first whether the later will is entitled to probate, and if a will is opposed by a petition for a declaration of intestacy, it shall be determined first whether the will is entitled to probate.”
Undue influence takes a puppet, not a suspicion
Torgersen states the standard, drawing on In re Estate of Reay, 249 Minn. 123, 126, 81 N.W.2d 277, 280 (1957): a contestant “must show that another person exercised influence at the time the testator executed the will to the degree that the will reflects the other person’s intent instead of the testator’s intent.” 711 N.W.2d at 550. And “[c]onjecture and suspicion are insufficient to prove undue influence.” Id. at 550–51.
The evidence bar comes from the supreme court’s language in In re Estate of Congdon, 309 N.W.2d 261, 268 (Minn. 1981), as quoted in Torgersen, 711 N.W.2d at 551. The influence had to be
“so dominant and controlling of the testator’s mind that, in making the will, he ceased to act of his own free volition and became a mere puppet of the wielder of that influence.”
“Mere puppet” is the phrase that does the work. It’s why claims that feel airtight to a grieving family fall apart in court. Being the kid who drove Mom to her appointments, lived with her, and ended up with more than the others isn’t undue influence, not without more. I tell prospective contestants that early. It’s cheaper to hear it in my office than from a judge.
Courts work through six factors, which Torgersen collects from In re Estate of Peterson, 283 Minn. 446, 449, 168 N.W.2d 502, 504 (1969), and In re Estate of Wilson, 223 Minn. 409, 413, 27 N.W.2d 429, 432 (1947):
(1) an opportunity to exercise influence; (2) the existence of a confidential relationship between the testator and the person claimed to have influenced the testator; (3) active participation by the alleged influencer in preparing the will; (4) an unexpected disinheritance or an unreasonable disposition; (5) the singularity of will provisions; and (6) inducement of the testator to make the will.
711 N.W.2d at 551. Torgersen itself shows how little factors (1) and (2) get you on their own. The court accepted that the beneficiary’s household “had a confidential relationship with Torgersen and the opportunity to exercise influence”. It still affirmed against the contestant. Why? The record showed the drafting attorney met with the testator alone. The testator gave her own reasons for the disinheritance. And her hostility toward the relatives she cut out traced to how she saw their conduct toward her, including a three-page letter the contestant himself wrote, not to anything the beneficiaries started.
Factor (3) is the one that moves cases. Who picked the lawyer, who sat in the room, who passed along the instructions, who paid the bill. A drafting attorney who meets the testator alone and writes down the stated reasons for an unequal split takes most of the air out of a later contest.
Testamentary capacity is a lower bar than people expect
And it’s measured at one moment.
The standard, as Torgersen states it from In re Estate of Healy, 243 Minn. 383, 386, 68 N.W.2d 401, 403 (1955), is that capacity exists if the testator knows
“the nature, situation, and extent of [her] property and the claims of others on [her] bounty … and [she] must be able to hold these things in [her] mind long enough to form a rational judgment concerning them.”
711 N.W.2d at 552. Section 524.2-501 sets the statutory floor: “Any person 18 or more years of age who is of sound mind may make a will.”
Courts look at four factors, collected in In re Estate of Anderson, 384 N.W.2d 518, 520 (Minn. Ct. App. 1986):
- reasonableness or naturalness of the property disposition;
- the testator’s conduct within a reasonable time before and after execution of the disputed will;
- prior adjudication involving the testator’s mental capacity; and
- expert testimony pertaining to the mental and physical condition of the testator.
Two doctrines cut hard against contestants here. One: the bar is lower than for ordinary business. “[L]ess mental capacity is required to make a will than to conduct regular business affairs.” Torgersen, 711 N.W.2d at 553–54 (quoting In re Estate of Prigge, 352 N.W.2d 443, 444–45 (Minn. Ct. App. 1984)). Evidence that she couldn’t manage a farm lease or balance an account anymore isn’t evidence that she couldn’t make a will. Two: a conservatorship doesn’t settle it. “[E]ven a person under a conservatorship may have sufficient capacity to execute a will.” Torgersen, 711 N.W.2d at 554 (citing Congdon, 309 N.W.2d at 267). Anderson says the same thing from the other side: “the subject of a conservatorship does not necessarily lack testamentary capacity,” and expert testimony “is not conclusive of testamentary capacity but only evidence to be weighed and considered.” 384 N.W.2d at 521.
Anderson is still the case contestants should read, because it’s the rare one they won. The proponent lost on a combination the trial court found persuasive: a diagnosis of chronic senile dementia, conservatorship proceedings started in two states, observed disorientation, a will that didn’t match the decedent’s long-declared intentions under an earlier will, and a sudden, unexplained move shortly before she signed. Id. at 520–21. The court of appeals affirmed under Minn. R. Civ. P. 52.01, because a finding gets set aside only if the reviewing court “is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Id. at 520 (quoting In re Estate of Congdon, 309 N.W.2d 261, 266 n.7 (Minn. 1981), which in turn quotes In re Estate of Balafas, 293 Minn. 94, 96, 198 N.W.2d 260, 261 (1972)).
That standard of review is the other big fact about these cases, and I plan around it. Capacity and undue influence are findings of fact, tried to the judge. They’re very hard to reverse in either direction. So the contest is won or lost at trial. The appeal is almost never the play.
How long do you have?
Section 524.3-108 sets the outer limits. Most probate and appointment proceedings can’t be started “more than three years after the decedent’s death,” subject to three exceptions. The third is the one that matters here:
(3) a proceeding to contest an informally probated will and to secure appointment of the person with legal priority for appointment in the event the contest is successful, may be commenced within the later of 12 months from the informal probate or three years from the decedent’s death.
Read “the later of” slowly, because it runs backwards from how limitations language usually reads. The deadline is whichever date falls further out. When the estate gets opened promptly, which is the normal case, twelve months from informal probate lands well inside three years from death, so three years from death controls. The twelve-month branch becomes the real deadline only in the minority of cases where nobody opened informal probate until more than two years after the death, and there it extends the time. It doesn’t cut it short. A contestant eighteen months past the death and thirteen months past an informal probate isn’t time-barred, whatever the other side’s letter says.
Section 524.3-108 also takes proceedings “to construe probated wills, determine heirs of an intestate, or proceedings to determine descent” out of the limits entirely.
Before you file
- Find out whether an older will names you as personal representative. If it does, § 524.3-720 changes your risk entirely, and Torgersen is the case that says so.
- Get the drafting attorney’s file early. Who made first contact, who was in the room, and what reasons the testator gave are factors (3) and (4) of the undue-influence test and factor (2) of the capacity test, all at once.
- Don’t build the case on the disposition alone. An unequal or surprising will is one factor out of six. In Torgersen the court declined to find a disposition unreasonable just because it looked that way from outside the testator’s own perspective. Mind the limit on that, though: it was a clear-error review of the record on the capacity factors, 711 N.W.2d at 552, not a holding about undue influence.
- Check whether the assets are even in the estate. A will contest is worth nothing if the money moved by beneficiary designation or a funded trust. Trust instruments have their own and much shorter contest deadline.
- Ask whether the real claim is somewhere else. A surviving spouse’s elective share, the premarital-will statute, and financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult are separate theories with separate burdens, and not one of them makes you prove the testator was a puppet.
Madgett Law, LLC
I try Minnesota will contests on both sides: proving and defending testamentary capacity and undue influence, pursuing and resisting fee awards under § 524.3-720, and telling clients early whether a contest is worth bringing, given where the assets actually sit. If a Minnesota will has been offered for probate and you believe it doesn’t reflect what the decedent wanted, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message. Madgett Law, LLC.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 524.3-720 (expenses in estate litigation; a personal representative or person nominated as personal representative who defends or prosecutes in good faith, whether successful or not, or any interested person who successfully opposes allowance of a will, recovers necessary expenses and reasonable attorneys’ fees from the estate). Minn. Stat. § 524.3-407 (burdens in contested cases: proponents prove prima facie due execution; contestants bear lack of testamentary intent or capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, mistake, or revocation; ultimate burden of persuasion follows the initial burden; ordering of a later-will or intestacy contest). Minn. Stat. § 524.3-406(b) (self-proved will; conclusive presumption of compliance with signature requirements). Minn. Stat. § 524.2-501 (18 years of age and of sound mind). Minn. Stat. § 524.3-108(3) (contest of an informally probated will within the later of 12 months from the informal probate or three years from death; construction, heirship, and descent proceedings excluded from the limits). In re Estate of Torgersen, 711 N.W.2d 545 (Minn. Ct. App. 2006): at 550 (contestant’s burden under § 524.3-407; undue influence must be exercised at the time of execution so that the will reflects the influencer’s intent, citing In re Estate of Reay, 249 Minn. 123, 126, 81 N.W.2d 277, 280 (1957); conjecture and suspicion insufficient); at 551 (“so dominant and controlling of the testator’s mind that, in making the will, he ceased to act of his own free volition and became a mere puppet of the wielder of that influence,” quoting In re Estate of Congdon, 309 N.W.2d 261, 268 (Minn. 1981); the six undue-influence factors, citing In re Estate of Peterson, 283 Minn. 446, 449, 168 N.W.2d 502, 504 (1969), and In re Estate of Wilson, 223 Minn. 409, 413, 27 N.W.2d 429, 432 (1947); the court’s treatment of the confidential relationship and opportunity findings); at 552 (testamentary capacity standard, quoting In re Estate of Healy, 243 Minn. 383, 386, 68 N.W.2d 401, 403 (1955)); at 553 (“[l]ess mental capacity is required to make a will than to conduct regular business affairs,” quoting In re Estate of Prigge, 352 N.W.2d 443, 444–45 (Minn. Ct. App. 1984)); at 553–54 (a person under a conservatorship may have sufficient capacity, citing Congdon, 309 N.W.2d at 267); at 554 (§ 524.3-720 quoted and construed to allow a nominated personal representative to recover whether or not the will nominating him is admitted; good faith is a question of fact; remand). In re Estate of Anderson, 384 N.W.2d 518 (Minn. Ct. App. 1986): at 520 (the four testamentary-capacity factors; the clearly-erroneous standard under Minn. R. Civ. P. 52.01, quoting In re Estate of Balafas, 293 Minn. 94, 96, 198 N.W.2d 260, 261 (1972)); at 520–21 (the five grounds on which the trial court found lack of capacity); at 521 (the subject of a conservatorship does not necessarily lack testamentary capacity; expert testimony is evidence to be weighed, not conclusive). Statutory text from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes (2025 edition). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Capacity and undue influence are findings of fact reviewed for clear error, and every case turns on its own record. No outcome is promised or implied.