Correct testamentary interpretation considering the will of the testator and extratextual elements.

Studio Legale Mauro — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 17:36:57 +0000

The court had entrusted the judgment of excluding the principal amount from the testamentary distribution, “for the rules of legal succession to be applicable,” to the statement that “it was more in keeping with the deceased’s wishes that the division of only the interest should take place according to the dictates set forth in the last will while for the principal amount that the same should be divided according to the rules of legal succession.” And this is because “nowhere in the will is there any express mention of the manner by which the division of the capital lot is to be carried out among the co-heirs; only the interest is always mentioned.” For the appellant, this wronged the rules on will interpretation, which, marked by the need to respect the testator’s will to the utmost, required going “beyond the literal meaning of the expressions used” and “valuing, recognizing the interpreter’s wide freedom of inquiry, a comprehensive assessment of the testator’s will, taking into account elements of both textual and extratextual nature,” such as “the testator’s own culture, mentality and living environment.” For the Second Civil Section, the appellant “on the basis of these elements” represented a different reading of the testamentary records “that would take into account, on the one hand, the special relationship, including the working relationship, that bound him to the de cuius, as emerging from the same bequests in his favor, and, on the other hand, the latter’s modest culture, which would have required taking into account the expressions used not according to their technical meaning, but according to what the author had wanted to attribute to them.” For the Supreme Court, such a censure respects the principles affirmed by the United Sections (No. 27199/2017) since the appellant has enucleated “the issues and contested points of the contested judgment and with them the related grievances, all centered on the erroneousness of the reading of the testamentary records carried out on the basis of literal data alone, without any search also of the will of the testatrix through the extratextual data, drawn from her relations with her grandson, as evinced by the same provisions of last will, and her cultural level.” Therefore, the quantum appellatum must be considered “exhaustively circumscribed” and the appeal upheld with referral back to the Court of Appeals.

Civil cassation sec. II – 17/10/2024, no. 26951

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Correct testamentary interpretation considering the will of the testator and extratextual elements.