Castruccio v. Estate of Castruccio

¹²² Arthur, J. A testator put his signature on page 5 of a six-page will that had consecutive pagination, consecutive paragraph-numbering, and a single, uniform font and typeface. The witnesses signed on page 6. The will’s six pages may or may not have been physically attached to one another by a staple at the time of signing. Relying on a 1921 case that invalidated a one-page will because the witnesses did not sign the will itself, but a separate document that was not physically attached to it, 1 the testator’s widow challenged the will.

The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel entered summary judgment against the widow. We affirm. Background A. The Purported Will Dr. Peter Castruccio died on February 19, 2013, at the age of 89. He had run various businesses over the decades and, with his wife of 60 years, owned numerous pieces of income-producing real estate.

The couple had no children. John R. Greiber Jr. had been Dr. Castruccio’s attorney for many years, In November 2010, Mr. Greiber deposited Dr. Castruccio’s six-page will, dated September 29, 2010, for safekeeping with the register of wills. The will revoked all prior wills and codicils, including a 2008 will that Dr. Castruccio had signed. In February 2013, a week after Dr. Castruccio’s death, Mr. Greiber petitioned the register of wills to probate the 2010 will and a brief codicil thereto.

Soon thereafter, those documents were admitted to probate in the orphans’ court. The will, which we reproduce in the appendix to this opinion, leaves cash bequests in varying amounts to Darlene Barclay (a longtime employee of Dr. Castruccio) and to two other persons. Item 8 of the will leaves the “rest and remainder” of the estate to Mrs. Castruccio, provided that she ¹²³ survives Dr. Castruccio and that “she has made and executed a will prior to [Dr. Castruccio’s] death.” Item 10, titled “Residuary Clause,” states that if Mrs. Castruccio “does not have a valid will filed with the Register of Wills of Anne Arundel County dated prior to” Dr. Castruccio’s will, “all the rest and residue of’ of the estate shall go to Darlene Barclay. 2 The will’s six pages are consecutively numbered as pages 1 of 6, 2 of 6, etc., through 6 of 6. After two brief, introductory paragraphs, the will contains 11, consecutively numbered “Items” or paragraphs, several of which contain consecutively numbered subparagraphs.

The font and type-size are consistent throughout the document. On page 5 of 6 of the will, Dr. Castruccio signed his name. A few spaces below the signature, the following words appear: “SIGNED, SEALED, PUBLISHED AND DECLARE [sic], BY PETER ADALBERT CASTRUCCIO.” Farther down, the last two lines of page 5 of 6 read: “The above named individual, does declare for his Last Will and Testament this instrument, have hereunto subscribed] to have witnessed] on the date last mentioned above, and at the location, and [ — ]” (Bold in original.) Below that awkward language appears the pagination, which reads “5 of 6.” The next, and last, page appears to be a continuation of the language at the bottom of page 5 of 6, because it is not separated from that language by a period, semi-colon, or other punctuation mark. It reads: “I do hereby attest that the testator to be [sic] of sound mind, fully able to understand this instrument, and the testator voluntarily and freely did sign same.” Below these words are the names, printed and signed, ¹²⁴ of Mr. Greiber; his daughter, Samantha Greiber; and Darlene Barclay’s daughter, Kim Barclay.

No other text appears on that last page other than the pagination, which, in culmination of the sequence of pages before it, reads “6 of 6.” B. The Petition to Caveat By the time of Dr. Castruccio’s death, Mrs. Castruceio had not filed a valid will with the register of wills. Under Mr. Greiber’s interpretation of the terms of Dr. Castruccio’s will, the residue of the estate would pass not to Mrs. Castruceio, but to Darlene Barclay. Faced with the prospect that she might receive nothing under her late husband’s will if Mr. Greiber’s interpretation prevailed, Mrs. Castruceio filed a petition to caveat in the orphans’ court. As a defendant, she named her late husband’s Estate. 3 Later, Mrs. Castruceio successfully petitioned to transmit seven issues to the circuit court for trial.

See Md. Code (1974, 2011 Repl. Vol.), § 2-105(b) of the Estates and Trusts Article (“ET”). Denominated as Issues A through G, those issues were: (A) whether Dr. Castruceio executed the 2010 will; (B) whether Dr. Castruceio executed the 2010 will with the intention that it should constitute his last will and testament; (C) whether all of the pages of the 2010 will are the genuine pages that Dr. Castruceio believed to comprise the will that he intended to execute; (D) whether the will was procured by undue influence; (E) whether the will was procured by fraud; (F) whether the will was actually attested and signed by credible witnesses in Dr. Castruccio’s presence; and ¹²⁵ (G) whether the contents of the will were read by and known to Dr. Castruccio at and before the time of the execution of the will on September 29, 2010. C. The Motions for Summary Judgment The Estate moved for summary judgment.

Darlene Barclay, who intervened as a co-defendant, submitted a memorandum stating that she adopted the reasoning in the Estate’s motion. Mrs. Castruccio opposed the motion. In addition, she filed a cross-motion for summary judgment as to Issue F, which concerned whether the will was actually attested and signed by credible witnesses in the testator’s presence. 1. Issue F In support of her cross-motion, Mrs. Castruccio argued that the Estate failed in its initial burden to present prima facie evidence that the document was validly executed.

She relied principally on Shane v. Wooley, 138 Md. 75 , 113 A. 652 (1921), which had upheld the invalidation of a one-page will because the witnesses’ signatures did not appear on the will itself or on a document that was physically attached to it. Citing Shane , Mrs. Castruccio argued that the witnessing or attestation was invalid, (a) because the witnesses did not sign on the same page as Dr. Castruccio, and (b) because the page containing the witnesses’ signatures was not “physically connected” to the page on which Dr. Castruccio had signed his name. Although the statutory provision on attestation requires only that a will be “attested and signed by two or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator,” 4 Mrs. Castruccio argued, in substance, that Shane adds a kind of judicial gloss, under which the pages must be affixed to one another if the witnesses and testator do not sign on the same page. ¹²⁶ Mrs. Castruccio presented the affidavit of her attorney, who declared that one month after the document (and its codicil) were admitted to probate, he inspected it at the register of wills, where it had been on file since November 2010. He said the document was comprised of “six separate, unattached pages,” without any staples, “staple holes or other evidence of having ever been physically connected together[.]” The register made a scanned copy of the original document, which Mrs. Castruccio appended to her motion.

Mrs. Castruccio also presented the affidavit of the register of wills, who stated that her office’s scanner was accurate enough to capture and depict the image of staple holes. In response, the Estate disputed Mrs. Castruccio’s assertion that page 6 of 6 (containing the witnesses’ signatures) was not affixed to page 5 of 6 (containing Dr. Castruccio’s signature) at the time when it was signed. In addition, the Estate argued that, even assuming that the pages were not affixed to each other at that time, mechanical attachment was not required under Maryland law. It contended that the two pages could be sufficiently connected where they appear to be internally connected as a single instrument. 2.

The Estate’s Motion on the Remaining Issues As to the remaining issues, the Estate argued that the document was indisputably valid, because Dr. Castruccio signed it in the witnesses’ presence, and because the witnesses, aware of the document’s contents, each signed their names in his presence. The Estate pointed to the affidavits of Mr. Greiber, Ms. Greiber, and Kim Barclay. Each of those affiants averred that Dr. Castruccio signed the document in their presence and announced that it was his last will and testament. Each of the affiants also averred that Dr. Castruc-cio “was of sound mind, fully able to understand the paper he was signing, and [that] he did voluntarily and freely sign his name to it.” The Estate argued that the document carried a presumption of due execution, based on the presence, spanning pages 5 of 6 and 6 of 6 of the document, of an “attestation clause” reciting ¹²⁷ that the required elements of a validly executed will were satisfied.

This clause, the Estate argued, was itself prima facie evidence of the will’s presumed validity, which shifted the burden to Mrs. Castruccio to demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that the facts recited in that attestation clause were not true. See, e.g., Van Meter v. Van Meter, 183 Md. 614, 618 , 39 A.2d 752 (1944); see also McIntyre v. Saltysiak, 205 Md. 415, 420-21 , 109 A.2d 70 (1954). Mrs. Castruccio responded that the document contained “multiple additional irregularities” that raised questions about its validity. She questioned the witnesses’ credibility and “the role that Darlene [Barclay] and Mr. Greiber played” in the preparation of the will.

She also questioned whether Dr. Castruccio understood what he signed and whether that document and the document submitted for probate were the same. She pointed out that the will recited that Dr. Castruccio had initialed each page, but that his initials do not appear on the document (including the page that states that he had initialed each page). Finally, Mrs. Castruccio pointed out that Darlene Barclay had destroyed a flash drive, which “might” have contained a file related to the will. Mrs. Castruccio argued that Ms. Barclay’s actions warranted an adverse inference sufficient for the denial of the Estate’s summary judgment motion.

In addition, she moved for sanctions against Ms. Barclay. D. The Circuit Court’s Rulings On September 23, 2014, the circuit court granted the Estate’s motion for summary judgment on all issues and denied Mrs. Castruccio’s cross-motion for summary judgment as to Issue F, concerning attestation. In denying Mrs. Castruccio’s cross-motion, the court assumed for the sake of argument that the pages of the will were not physically attached to one another at the time of signing. Nonetheless, the court rejected Mrs. Castruccio’s argument that because the witnesses had not signed on the same page as Dr. Castruccio or on a page physically connected to it, the will was invalid under Shane v. Wooley.

The court ¹²⁸ explained that “the focus should be on a more holistic inquiry” into whether the document had been properly attested, rather than whether “at a certain point some or all of the pages were mechanically affixed to each other.” It characterized Mrs. Castruccio’s position as “exalt[ing] a rather mechanistic function over an inquiry that should focus on a testator’s intent[.]” It declined to read Shane v. Wooley to “creat[e] an engine of destruction” for a “clearly unified document” that fully meets the explicit requirements of the Estates and Trusts Article, but lacks a staple. 5 In granting the Estate’s motion for summary judgment on the remaining issues, the court concluded that the Estate had established a prima facie case that the document was validly executed. The court went on to conclude that Mrs. Castruccio failed to produce the requisite clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. The court specifically rejected Mrs. Castruccio’s contention that Ms. Barclay’s destruction of the flash drive supplied a clear and convincing basis upon which the trier of fact could overturn the will’s presumed validity. In an order entered on October 2, 2014, the court granted the Estate’s summary judgment motion as to all seven issues and denied Mrs. Castruccio’s cross-motion on Issue F. 6 Questions Presented On appeal, Mrs. Castruccio presents several questions, which we have consolidated and rephrased as follows: ¹²⁹ I. Did the circuit court err in denying Mrs. Castruccio’s cross-motion for summary judgment and concluding that the document was validly attested, where the testator and witnesses signed on separate pages that were not “physically connected” to each other?

II

Did the circuit court err when it determined that the will was entitled to a presumption of due execution?

III

Did the circuit court err in granting summary judgment in favor of the Estate without having specifically ruled on whether sanctions should be imposed against Darlene Barclay for alleged spoliation of electronic flies? 7 Discussion I. Standard of Review When a party moves for summary judgment, the court “shall enter judgment in favor of or against the moving party ¹³⁰ if the motion and response show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party in whose favor judgment entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Md. Rule 2-501(f). The issue of whether a trial court properly granted summary judgment is a question of law. Butler v. S & S P’ship, 435 Md. 635, 665 , 80 A.3d 298 (2013) (citation omitted). In an appeal from the grant of summary judgment, this Court conducts a de novo review to determine whether the circuit court’s conclusions were legally correct.

See D’Aoust v. Diamond, 424 Md. 549, 574 , 36 A.3d 941 (2012). The relevant inquiry is well known: When reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we determine whether the parties properly generated a dispute of material fact and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. This Court considers the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and construe[s] any reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the facts against the moving party. Blackburn Ltd. P’ship v. Paul, 438 Md. 100, 107-08 , 90 A.3d 464 (2014) (citations and quotation marks omitted).

Ordinarily, to defeat summary judgment, “[a] plaintiffs claim must be supported by more than a scintilla of evidence!,] as there must be evidence upon which [a] jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff.” Id. at 108 , 90 A.3d 464 (citation and quotation marks omitted). However, when the plaintiff faces the added burden of producing clear and convincing evidence, as Mrs. Castruccio does in countering the presumption of due execution, the plaintiff cannot survive summary judgment on that issue unless the judge determines that the evidence meets that higher burden. See Darcars Motors of Silver Spring, Inc. v. Borzym, 379 Md. 249, 267-70 , 841 A.2d 828 (2004).

II

Validly Executed Wills In Maryland, a testamentary document, to be validly executed, must be “(1) in writing, (2) signed by the testator, or by some other person for him, in his presence and by his ¹³¹ express direction, and (3) attested and signed by two or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator.” ET § 4-102. 8 The burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the statute’s required elements have been met rests with the document’s proponent. Groat v. Sundberg, 213 Md.App. 144, 152-53 , 73 A.3d 374 (2013) (citations omitted). One tested method for meeting this prima facie burden is to show the presence of a valid “attestation clause.” A “presumption of due execution” attaches to a will that contains the testator’s signature as well as an “attestation clause” signed by the witnesses. Slack, 368 Md. at 7-8, 791 A.2d 129 (citing McIntyre v. Saltysiak, 205 Md. at 420-22 , 109 A.2d 70 ); see also O’Neal v. Jennings, 53 Md.App. 604, 608 , 455 A.2d 66 (1983). 9 A valid attestation clause, however, is not required to demonstrate a will’s validity.

See Slack v. Truitt, 368 Md. 2, 12 , 791 A.2d 129 (2002). For example, in Slack the Court of Appeals held that, even without an attestation clause, a will was entitled to the presumption of due execution when it was in the testator’s handwriting and bore the signatures of the testator and the witnesses, who signed their names in the testator’s presence beneath the words “Witnessed By[.]” Id. ¹³² “Attestation,” as required by section 4-102, is at issue in this case. Attestation is “ ‘the act of witnesses in seeing that those things exist and are done which the statute requires.’ ” Slack, 368 Md. at 12 , 791 A.2d 129 (quoting Van Meter, 183 Md. at 619 , 39 A.2d 752 ). It begins with the testator asking the witnesses, either by words or deeds, to sign the will.

Greenhawk v. Quimby, 170 Md. 280, 287-88 , 184 A. 485 (1936). Witnesses need not know the document is a will as long as they see the testator sign it (Casson v. Swogell, 304 Md. 641, 654 , 500 A.2d 1031 (1985)), nor must they observe the testator signing it as long as he or she acknowledges the signature or informs the witnesses that the document is a will. Van Meter, 183 Md. at 617 , 39 A.2d 752 . The witnesses must, however, sign the will in the testator’s presence, i.e., within the testator’s unobstructed range of vision.

Groat , 213 Md.App. at 161—62, 73 A.3d 374 .

III

Must the Attestation be “Physically Connected” to the Will? Mrs. Castruccio argues that the Estate failed to make a prima facie case of a valid attestation, as the witnesses’ signatures appear neither on the same page as Dr. Castruc-cio’s nor on a page that is “physically connected” to it. The Estate agrees that the witnesses’ signatures and Dr. Castruccio’s signature appear on separate pages, but it insists that Maryland law does not mandate that the separate pages must be “physically connected” by mechanical attachment. Even where the pages are unaffixed to each other, the Estate argues, it suffices if they are connected by some internal sense.

A. Shane v. Wooley In Shane v. Wooley, 138 Md. at 79-80 , 113 A. 652 , the testatrix “signed her name at the foot of the alleged will, which was contained on one sheet of paper[.]” After folding the will, testator “placed it in an envelope and sealed it.” Id. at 80 , 113 A. 652 . “The attestation clause and the signature of the witnesses were then written across the sealed portion of the ¹³³ envelope, on the outside thereof.” Id. The signed paper inside the envelope “was not dated nor witnessed on the paper itself[.]” Id. at 76 , 113 A. 652 . The orphans’ court, upon petition, held that the caveators were entitled to a decree revoking the order that had admitted the will to probate. On appeal from that decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed.

The Court stated: While there is no provision of the statute of this state, which requires, in terms, that the attestation clause and the signatures of the witnesses shall be at the end of the will, or at any particular place of the will, ... the weight of authority, however, appears to be that mtnesses must sign, either upon the same sheet as the signature of the testator, or on some sheet physically connected with it, to constitute a valid will. Id. at 78 , 113 A. 652 (emphasis added). Because the witnesses had signed the envelope that contained the will and not the will itself, “the attestation or subscription by the witnesses was not on the same sheet of paper as the testatrix’s own signature, nor was it upon a paper physically connected with that sheet.” Id. at 79 , 113 A. 652 . In those circumstances, the Court held that “the formalities prescribed by law in the execution of wills ha[d] not been complied with to constitute a valid will[.]” Id. at 80 , 113 A. 652 .

B. Attestation on a Page Separate from the Will Itself Versus Attestation on One Page of a Multi-Page Will Mrs. Castruccio advances a broad reading of Shane , under which a will is invalid if the testator and the witnesses sign on different pages of the will and those pages are not, in some way, physically connected to each other at the time of signing. We reject her reading. In our view, Shane concerns cases in which a witness signs a document other than the will itself. In those circumstances, Shane holds that the will is invalid unless the separate document was, in some way, physically connected to the will at the time of signing.

Shane’s physical-connection rule does not ¹³⁴ apply when the witnesses and the testator sign different pages of an internally-cohesive, multi-page will. In explaining why the “weight of authority” supported its conclusion, the Shane Court relied prominently on In re Baldwin’s Will, 146 N.C. 25 , 59 S.E. 163 (1907). In that case, a witness signed the testator’s will, but later transcribed it onto a better sheet of paper, which he signed outside the testator’s presence. Id. at 26-27 , 59 S.E. at 164 .

The witness sent the new document to the testator, who signed it and had it witnessed in his presence by a second witness. Id. at 27 , 59 S.E. at 164 . After the testator’s death, his wife burned the original document and offered the new document for probate. Id. at 28 , 59 S.E. at 165 .

The North Carolina Supreme Court held that the new document was invalid because the statute required two witnesses, but the first had signed before the testator signed the new document and had not signed it in the testator’s presence. Id. at 29 , 59 S.E. at 165 . It made no difference that the witness had properly attested a different document that had since been destroyed. Id. at 30 , 59 S.E. at 165 . “[Although the contents of the papers may have been identical,” the court explained, “there was no physical connection between the two.” Id.

The court concluded: “the attestation or subscription by witnesses must be on the same sheet of paper as that which contains the testator’s signature, or else upon some paper physically connected with that sheet.” Id. In short, Baldwin’s Will was addressing whether a will was valid when a necessary witness had properly attested the testator’s signature only on a separate sheet, which was not in any way part of or “physically connected” to the probated document. In quoting Baldwin’s Will for the proposition that an attestation “ ‘must be on the same sheet of paper as that which contains the testator’s signature, or else upon some paper physically connected with that sheet[ ]’ ” (Shane, 138 Md. at 78 , 113 A. 652 (citation omitted)), Shane was reinforcing its holding that, when a witness signs a document that is not part of the will itself, that document must be “physically ¹³⁵ connected” to the will for the will to be declared valid. Neither Shane nor Baldwin discussed whether an internally-cohesive, multi-page will was invalid if the testator and the witnesses signed different pages that were not “physically connected” to one another.

Shane cited a number of other, out-of-state cases, which confirm that the Court was concerned only with the problem of witnesses signing a document other than the will itself. In In re Perrine’s Will, 109 Misc. 459 , 180 N.Y.S. 333 (N.Y.Surr.Ct.1919), the Surrogate’s Court for Montgomery County, New York, declined to admit a will to probate because the witnesses had signed an envelope that contained the will and had not signed the will itself. By contrast, in Bolton v. Bolton, 107 Miss. 84, 90 , 64 So. 967, 967 (1914), a Mississippi court upheld a will where one of the witnesses had signed his name on a separate acknowledgement form, which the testator folded up with the will and handed to the person who drafted it. The court found an adequate physical connection between the will and the acknowledgment form because “the testator himself, knowing what [the witness’s] signature was intended to be, handed the two papers to [the drafter], folded together, as his completed will.” Id. at 91 , 64 So. at 967 .

Like Baldwin’s Will and Shane , both of these cases concern the problem of witnesses signing a document other than the will itself; they do not concern internally-cohesive, multi-page wills on which the testator and the witnesses sign different pages. 10 In addition to the out-of-state cases, Shane looked to § 336 of James Schouler’s treatise, The Law of Wills, Executors, and Administrators (5th ed. 1915). Section 336 is titled “Attestation on a Different Paper.” It states: ¹³⁶ [T]he attestation or subscription by witnesses must be on the same sheet of paper as that which contains the testator’s own signature, or else upon some paper physically connected with that sheet. No particular mode of connection is prescribed by law; and hence the fastening by tape, by eyelets, by mucilage, or even by a pin, seems unobjectionable. Where papers are thus connected, the testator may sign on one paper and the witnesses on another, provided their intent corresponded.

But attestation ... by witnesses on a piece of paper, detached and separated from the will and the testator’s signature, nor affixed in his presence to the paper at the time of execution, fails of compliance with the policy of our law; we may assume it to be void, as otherwise a door would open to much fraud and perjury. Schouler, The Law of Wills, Executors, and Administrators, supra, § 336, at 414-15. Read in isolation, this language might appear to invalidate a multi-page will if the testator and the witnesses signed on separate pages that were not physically connected to each other at the time of execution. If one reads no farther than the following section, however, it becomes clear that § 336 applies when the witnesses sign “a [different [pjaper” from the will itself and that an entirely different rule governs multi-page wills.

Section 337 of the Schouler treatise is titled “Attestation where a Will is written on Several Sheets.” Citing a number of authorities, including Lord Mansfield’s decision in Bond v. Seawell, 3 Burr. 1773 (1765), Schouler stated that “if the will be written on several sheets, whether fastened together or not, and the last sheet alone is attested in form, the whole will is well executed, provided all the sheets were in the room.” Schouler, The Law of Wills, Executors, and Administrators, supra, § 337, at 415 (emphasis added). He added: “if the several pieces of paper are connected in their provisions and form a connected series, and are brought in this shape before ¹³⁷ the attesting witnesses at the time of their subscription, a single attestation will suffice for the whole.” Id. It is telling that the Shane Court cited § 336 of Schouler, but did not cite § 337. The Court’s selection of authorities confirms that Shane was concerned with the problem discussed in § 336—attestation on a document separate from the will itself, such as the envelope in Shane .

The Court was not concerned with the problem discussed in § 337 (and in this case)—attestation of a multi-page will. C. Attestation of a Multi-Page Will In the case of multi-page wills, a considerable body of authority comports with Schouler’s assertion that the pages need not be affixed to each other, so long as there is an indication, internally or otherwise, that the pages belong together and that the testator intended as much. Most notably, in In re Kaiser’s Estate, 150 Neb. 295, 299-300 , 34 N.W.2d 366, 370 (1948), the testator signed the first page of a two-page will, and the witnesses attested his signature on the second. The Nebraska court upheld the will, reasoning that “[t]here is no statutory provision in this state designating just where a will shall be attested and subscribed by the witnesses, or forbidding the use of separate sheets in making a will, or directing how or that they shall be physically attached to each other in order to make a valid will.” Id. at 305 , 34 N.W.2d at 373 .

The court stressed that a will “ ‘may be written on several sheets,’ ” that “ ‘physical connection by mechanical, chemical, or other means is not required,’ ” that “ ‘connection by the meaning and coherence of the subject matter is sufficient,” ’ and that in the absence of a physical connection, “ ‘papers must be identified as one will by their internal sense.’ ” Id. at 306 , 34 N.W.2d at 373 (quoting 68 C.J., Wills § 267, at 639). Many courts and other authorities have reached a like conclusion. See, e.g., In re Covington’s Estate, 348 Pa. 1, 15 , 33 A.2d 235, 241 (1943) (upholding a holographic will consisting of three separate pages on the ground that “[f]or us to say that a will cannot be admitted to probate ... unless the several ¹³⁸ papers of which it consists are physically fastened together ... would be an act of legislation and a most unwise one for it would prevent the probate of papers which ... are beyond all doubt the last will of the person ... who signed them[ ]”); In re Estate of Beale, 15 Wis.2d 546, 555 , 113 N.W.2d 380, 384 (1962) (upholding a 14-page will whose pages were not physically connected on the ground that “[t]here is nothing legally invalid in the execution of a will because the separate pages of the will have not been fastened together”); accord Page on the Law of Wills, § 19.15 (Rev. ed. 2003) (stating that “[i]f it is established by proper testimony that [all sheets of a will] were present when the will was executed, it is by the weight of authority sufficient, although they are not connected physically or by the meaning of the words”); W.W. Allen, Annotation, Validity of will written on disconnected sheets, 38 A.L.R.2d 477 (upon review of about 100 cases, stating: “With one exception only, the cases have either held, declared, implied, or assumed that a will may be validly executed notwithstanding its having been written on two or more sheets which were not in any manner held or attached together at the time of execution”). 11 In fact, even before Shane was decided, the North Carolina court, whose decision figured prominently in the Court of Appeals’ decision, had upheld the validity of a two-page will whose pages were detached from one another. In In re Swaim’s Will, 162 N.C. 213, 215 , 78 S.E. 72, 73 (1913), the court rejected the proposition that physical attachment is required.

Instead, the court looked to whether the pages are “connected by their internal sense, by coherence or adaptation.” Id. at 216 , 78 S.E. at 73 . Because “the papers, while separate, b[ore] intrinsic evidence that they were tacked together in the mind of the testator,” the court upheld the validity of the will. Id. ¹³⁹ In summary, Shane concerns cases in which a witness’s attestation is on a document that is not part of the will itself: in those cases, Shane held that physical connection is required. Shane , however, did not hold that a multi-page will is valid only if the testator and witnesses sign on the same page of the will itself or, if they do not, if the pages are in some way physically connected to one another.

Consequently, we see no reason not to follow the great weight of authority nationwide, that such a will is valid as long the pages are connected by “ ‘the meaning and coherence of the subject matter’ ” or they may “identified as one will by their internal sense.’” In re Kaiser’s Estate, 150 Neb. at 306 , 34 N.W.2d at 373 (quoting 68 C.J., Wills § 267, at 639). D. The Alleged “Reaffirmation” of Shane Mrs. Castruccio responds that Maryland courts have “reaffirmed” her expansive reading of Shane . She cites Casson v. Swogell, 304 Md. 641 , 500 A.2d 1031 (1985), and Goroum v. Rynarzewski, 89 Md.App. 676 , 599 A.2d 843 (1991). Both cases mention Shane , but neither can legitimately be said to affirm, much less to “reaffirm,” Mrs. Castruccio’s reading of it.

Casson concerns the concept of “publication” of a will—the disclosure, by a testator, to the witnesses, that the document that they are signing is a will. Casson holds that “publication is not required for the valid execution and attestation of a will” when the testator signs in the witnesses’ presence. See Casson, 304 Md. at 643 , 500 A.2d 1031 ; see also id. at 654, 500 A.2d 1031 (“it is not necessary that the witness know [a document] is a will”); id. at 656 , 500 A.2d 1031 (“attestation may properly be made without the witness knowing the nature of the instrument”). According to Casson , a testator must acknowledge his or her signature or declare the document to be a will “only when the testator has signed the instrument out of the presence of the witnesses.” See id. at 656 , 500 A.2d 1031 .

After deciding those issues, the Casson Court addressed two additional issues “for the guidance of the trial court” on ¹⁴⁰ remand. Id. at 657 , 500 A.2d 1031 . One of those issues involved a contention that the two-page will was “invalid because the signatures of both witnesses d[id] not appear at the end of the will, and d[id] not appear in close proximity to one another at any particular place on the document.” Id. The Court said that Shane “dealt with a similar issue.” Id.

The Court went on to quote Shane’s statements that the Maryland statute does not require the witnesses to sign “ ‘at the end of the will or at any particular place of the will,’ ” but that “ ‘the weight of authority’ ” “ ‘appears to be that the witnesses must sign, either upon the same sheet as the signature of the testator, or on some sheet physically connected to it.’ ” Id. (quoting Shane, 138 Md. at 78 , 113 A. 652 ). In concluding its “guidance” to the trial court, the Court stated that “[w]hile the fact that the two witnesses did not sign in the same place may bear on the jury question of whether the will is a fraud, it does not constitute a fatal variance from the required procedure for lawful execution.” Id. Because the Court’s “guidance” concerned whether a will is invalid if the witnesses do not sign in close proximity to one another, we do not interpret Casson to hold that an internally-cohesive, multi-page will is invalid unless the witnesses sign on the same page as the testator or on a page that is physically connected to it.

In this regard, we note that as support for its holding that a testator need not declare the instrument to be a will if he or she signs it in the witnesses’ presence, Casson cited Bond v. Seawell, 3 Burr. 1775 (1773), the leading English authority for the proposition that the pages of a multi-page will need not be fastened together. Casson, 304 Md. at 650 , 500 A.2d 1031 . 12 Goroum affirmed the entry of summary judgment against a caveator who appears to have contended that the attestation page was not attached to the rest of the will when the testator ¹⁴¹ signed it at a law office. See Goroum, 89 Md.App. at 679-81 , 599 A.2d 843 . “No one testified,” however, “that the attestation page of this will was at any time unaffixed.” Id. at 681 , 599 A.2d 843 . Instead, the caveator argued that the law firm’s general practice was to have the documents signed before the pages were affixed to one another.

In response, this Court held that the “general practice” did not give rise to the “clear and convincing evidence,” required under the presumption of due execution, “that it was done that way in a specific instance.” Id. The Goroum Court distinguished Shane , observing that the attestation in that case “was written on the outside of an envelope in which the will was contained,” while the attestation page in Goroum “was affixed” when the will was discovered in the register’s office and when presented to the orphans’ court. Id. at 682 , 599 A.2d 843 . This Court had no reason to consider whether Shane actually applied to an internally-cohesive, multi-page will, because no one raised the question of whether it did.

For that reason, we do not interpret Goroum to hold that such a will is invalid unless the witnesses sign on the same page as the testator or on a page that is physically connected to it. E. The Policy of Preventing Fraud Mrs. Castruecio stresses that a requirement of physical connection will effectuate a statutory purpose of preventing-fraud in the preparation of wills. She does not, however, contend that a multi-page will is invalid unless all of its pages are in some way physically attached to one another. Instead, in her view, the only pages that must be physically attached to one another are the pages on which the testator and the witnesses signed (if they sign on separate pages).

Yet if the purpose of the affixation requirement is to prevent fraud, it is difficult to understand why we would adopt a rule that requires only the signature pages of multi-page will to be attached to each other. Such a rule might prevent a witness from attesting a signature that he or she did not ¹⁴² actually see the