The Handwritten Word That Changed Everything: What Trustees Need to Know About Reformation Petitions and No-Contest Clauses After Packard v. Packard

Dana had been a licensed private professional fiduciary for eleven years when the Linden file landed on her desk. She had administered dozens of trusts — some clean, some messy, a few that ended in courtrooms. She knew the playbook. And the Linden trust, at first, looked like one she could close in under a year.

Tom Linden had died and left behind two adult sons, a family residence appraised at $970,000, and a trust that had been rewritten twice. The original trust, signed in 2010, split everything equally between the brothers. Two years later, Tom signed a formal amendment: one son would receive the residence, and the other would receive a cash payment “equal to the value” of the home — so that each brother walked away with the same dollar amount. Equal shares, different forms. Simple enough.

But then came the handwriting.

In 2014, Tom took a pen to the amendment. In his own hand, he inserted two words — “one-half” — before the phrase “the value of trustor’s residence,” initialed the change, and dated it. The amendment now read that the second son would receive a sum equal to one-half the appraised value of the residence. A small change in words. A $485,000 change in money. One brother would keep a $970,000 house. The other would receive $485,000 in cash. Whatever Tom intended, the words on the page did not produce equal shares.

Dana did what every professional fiduciary does first. She served the written notice the law requires — putting both beneficiaries on notice that the trust was now irrevocable and starting the 120-day clock for any trust contest. (Prob. Code, § 16061.7, subds. (a), (h).) The brother who got less grumbled. His attorney sent a letter. But no contest was filed. The 120 days passed, and the window for challenging the trust’s validity closed. (Prob. Code, § 16061.8.)

Dana exhaled. She ordered the appraisal, paid the debts, and began planning distributions. She was doing her job.

Then, more than a year after the deadline expired, a petition arrived. Not a contest. A reformation petition. The brother’s attorney alleged that Tom’s handwritten “one-half” was a mistake — that Tom had always intended his sons to share equally, and that when he wrote “one-half” he believed, wrongly, that those words would produce equal shares. The petition asked the court to reform the trust to match what Tom actually meant.

Dana called her attorney. “Wait — can he do that? The 120 days passed. And there’s a no-contest clause.”

The answer, after Packard v. Packard (2025) 108 Cal.App.5th 1284, is yes. And every professional fiduciary in California needs to understand why.

The Framework Every Trustee Trusts — and Its Limits

Dana understood why she felt safe — or thought she did.

The system she relied on works the same way for every successor trustee in the state. When a revocable trust becomes irrevocable — usually on the settlor’s death — the trustee sends a written notice to all beneficiaries and heirs, warning that any challenge must be brought within 120 days. (Prob. Code, § 16061.7, subd. (a); id., § 16061.8.) If the trust contains a no-contest clause, the stakes climb higher still — a beneficiary who files a challenge to the trust’s validity without a reasonable basis forfeits their share entirely. (Prob. Code, § 21311, subd. (a)(1).)

For a professional fiduciary, that framework feels like a fortress. Serve the notice, wait out the clock, and the trust terms are settled. Dana had built a career on that assumption. Most private professional fiduciaries and corporate trustees have.

But the statute says “contest.” It does not say “reformation.” And as the Fourth District Court of Appeal held in Packard, that single word makes all the difference.

What a Contest Is — and What It Isn’t

The difference mattered to Dana because it determined whether the petition sitting on her attorney’s desk was the kind of challenge she had spent 120 days waiting for — or something else entirely.

A trust contest attacks the document itself. It says the settlor lacked capacity, or was under undue influence, or was the victim of fraud. The grounds are listed in Probate Code section 21310, subdivision (b). A contest seeks to thwart the settlor’s intent — to undo what the settlor did. (Packard v. Packard, supra, 108 Cal.App.5th at p. 1292; Estate of Friedman (1979) 100 Cal.App.3d 810, 817–818.)

A reformation petition does the opposite. It says the settlor knew exactly what he wanted, but the words on the page got it wrong. Reformation seeks to carry out the settlor’s intent — to fix a drafting mistake so the document matches what the settlor actually meant. (Donkin v. Donkin (2013) 58 Cal.4th 412, 434; Packard v. Packard, supra, 108 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1292–1293.)

Think of it this way. A contest says the builder built the wrong house. Reformation says the builder built the right house, but the blueprint had a typo. One attacks the building. The other attacks the drafting. The law treats them as fundamentally different proceedings — with different deadlines, different burdens, and different consequences.

Courts have long held that disputes over the meaning or interpretation of trust instruments do not trigger no-contest clauses. (Donkin v. Donkin, supra, 58 Cal.4th at p. 434; Estate of Black (1984) 160 Cal.App.3d 582, 588.) And a reformation petition that does not question the trust’s validity — but seeks to determine and carry out the settlor’s true intent — is not a contest. (Giammarrusco v. Simon (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 1586, 1602, 1607.)

The no-contest clause Dana counted on was never built to stop what happened next. And the 120-day deadline? It applies to contests. A reformation petition runs on a different clock — the three-year statute of limitations for relief on the ground of mistake under Code of Civil Procedure section 338, subdivision (d). (Packard v. Packard, supra, 108 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1295–1296.)

But even with three years and no no-contest threat, the brother who got less still had a problem. The words his father wrote were perfectly clear.

Why “Clear” Language Isn’t the End of the Story

Dana’s instinct — and likely yours — is to look at the words and say: “There is nothing to reform. ‘One-half the value’ is plain English.” Before 2015, Dana would have been right. If the language was unambiguous, courts could not look behind it.

The California Supreme Court changed that in Estate of Duke (2015) 61 Cal.4th 871. Duke held that reformation of a will or a trust is permitted even where the words look perfectly clear, so long as the petitioner brings clear and convincing evidence of two things: first, that the document contains a mistake in the donor’s expression of intent at the time it was drafted; and second, the donor’s actual specific intent at that time. (Estate of Duke, supra, 61 Cal.4th at p. 898.)

The principle is not as strange as it sounds. A deed that says “10 acres” when the parties agreed on 100 is not unclear — it is wrong. Duke says the same is true for a trust. The purpose of reformation, the Supreme Court explained, is to carry out the wishes of the person who created the document. (Id. at p. 892.) And although Duke involved a will, the court relied on trust reformation case law in reaching its conclusion, citing Ike v. Doolittle (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 51 for the proposition that courts possess equitable power to modify trust terms where modification serves the settlor’s original intentions. (Estate of Duke, supra, 61 Cal.4th at p. 887.)

Applied to Tom Linden’s handwriting, Duke opened a door that no amount of clear drafting could close. The words “one-half the value” are plain. No one disputes what they mean. But the brother’s claim was not that the words were unclear. His claim was that the words were wrong — that his father intended equal shares and mistakenly believed “one-half” would produce that result when it did the opposite. After Duke, the question is not whether the words are clear. The question is whether the words match what the settlor actually intended when he wrote them.

That question — what Tom actually intended — was a question for trial. But first, the court had to decide something else: what kind of petition the brother had filed.

The Trap: Confusing the Merits with the Nature of the Claim

If Dana’s attorney had defended the trust the way the trustee’s attorney defended it in the real Packard case, the argument would have sounded airtight — and it would have been wrong.

The trustee’s argument ran like this: the word “one-half” is clear; therefore there is no mistake; therefore the reformation petition is really a contest in disguise. The probate court agreed and threw the case out on the paperwork alone, without a trial.

The Court of Appeal reversed. The flaw in the reasoning, the court explained, was that it collapsed two separate questions into one. The first question is threshold: What kind of petition is this? The second question goes to the merits: Can the petitioner actually prove a mistake? In other words, the trustee was answering the wrong question. The court held that the trustee’s argument confused the merits of the reformation claim with the nature of the claim itself. (Packard v. Packard, supra, 108 Cal.App.5th at p. 1295.)

A meritless reformation petition is still a reformation petition — just as a medical malpractice lawsuit destined to lose at trial is still a medical malpractice lawsuit, not a breach of contract claim. The outcome of the case does not change the kind of case it is. Whether the brother can muster clear and convincing evidence that Tom made a mistake is a battle for trial. But the classification of the petition — reformation or contest — is decided at the threshold, based on what the petition alleges and seeks to accomplish. (Id. at p. 1295.)

To hold otherwise, the court noted, would contradict Estate of Duke and gut the reformation remedy entirely. If a court could classify a reformation petition as a contest simply because the language looks clear, then no reformation petition could ever survive — because the whole point of reformation is that the clear language got it wrong. (Ibid.)

This is the logical trap a professional fiduciary must learn to spot. The strength of the trust language is not an argument about what kind of petition was filed. It is an argument about whether the petition should succeed. Those are different questions, answered at different stages — and for a trustee like Dana, the practical consequences arrive at different stages too.

What This Means for Trustees After Packard

The holding reads narrow. Its consequences run wide.

Dana learned — too late — that the 120-day deadline is a wall with a door in it. A beneficiary who misses the contest window still has up to three years to file a reformation petition. (Code Civ. Proc., § 338, subd. (d).) Silence after the notification means finality for contests — but not for reformation.

The no-contest clause, the provision Dana had counted on to keep the trust terms settled, turned out to have a blind spot. After Packard, a no-contest clause does not reach reformation petitions. The clause deters challenges to whether the trust is valid. It does not deter petitions that claim to carry out the settlor’s true intent. No-contest clauses must be strictly construed and may not extend beyond what was plainly the settlor’s intent. (Perrin v. Lee (2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 1239, 1248–1249.) And the California Law Revision Commission has observed that a beneficiary should not be punished for bringing an action to ensure the proper interpretation, reformation, or administration of an estate plan. (Giammarrusco v. Simon, supra, 171 Cal.App.4th at p. 1607.)

The fortress Dana built around the Linden trust — clear language, a no-contest clause, a 120-day clock — turned out to have a gate she never knew about. Since Duke, a petitioner can bring evidence from outside the four corners of the document — letters, testimony, prior drafts — to show that even plain words got the settlor’s intent wrong. The standard is high — clear and convincing evidence — but the door is open.

And if a reformation petition arrives, a trustee’s best defense is on the merits. Do not waste resources arguing the petition is “really” a contest. Prepare to show that the language means what it says and reflects what the settlor intended.

But preparing to defend the trust terms is one thing. Deciding what to do with the trust’s money while the defense unfolds is another.

The Three-Year Window: Administering a Trust on Uncertain Ground

The legal analysis is only half the problem. The harder question is practical, and it is the one that keeps professional fiduciaries awake: What do you do during those three years?

Dana did not just wait after the 120 days passed — she acted, because that is what professional fiduciaries are trained to do. She had the residence appraised at $970,000, transferred it to one brother, and began distributing $485,000 in cash to the other. She followed the trust as written. Then the reformation petition arrived, claiming the “one-half” was a mistake and that the settlor intended both sons to receive equal value — meaning the cash payment should have been $970,000, not $485,000.

If the court reforms the trust, Dana will have distributed $485,000 too little to one brother. Does the trust have enough left to cover the difference? Can she recover assets from the brother who already received the house? Is she personally liable?

This is the scenario Packard made real.

A trustee has a duty to administer the trust according to its terms. (Prob. Code, § 16000.) But “its terms” may not be its final terms if a reformation petition is pending — or even foreseeable. The trustee who distributes quickly and gets it wrong faces personal liability under Probate Code section 16440, subdivision (a). The trustee who holds funds and waits faces beneficiary petitions under Probate Code section 17200 for unreasonable delay. Either path carries risk. The question is which risk is manageable.

The strongest tool available is the petition for instructions under Probate Code section 17200. A trustee who is uncertain how to proceed may petition the court for direction — including guidance on how to read the trust’s terms and who gets what. (Prob. Code, § 17200, subd. (b)(1)–(b)(6).) The petition protects the trustee from a later finding that her actions were unreasonable — and from having to pay out of pocket for wrong distributions. After Packard, for a private professional fiduciary or corporate trustee, filing for instructions before distributing is no longer just good practice. It is what a reasonable trustee does.

And if distributions have already been made? Probate Code section 16440, subdivision (b) provides a critical safe harbor: if the trustee “acted reasonably and in good faith under the circumstances as known to the trustee,” the court in its discretion may excuse the trustee in whole or in part from liability. For a private professional fiduciary, the question is whether a reasonable fiduciary in Dana’s position would have distributed without seeking court instructions. A trustee who distributed after the 120-day deadline but before the three-year reformation window expired — without seeking court direction — faces an argument that the distribution was “reasonable,” especially now that Packard has put the profession on notice.

A trustee who obtained a court order before distributing stands on far firmer ground. The difference between those two trustees may come down to a single filing.

There is one more defense worth knowing. Getty v. Getty (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 1159, 1175–1176 holds that laches may bar a reformation claim where delay has caused real harm — including where distributions have already been made, the brother has already bought a new house with his share, or key witnesses have died. A trustee who distributed in good faith and can show that the beneficiary’s delay caused real prejudice has a defense. But laches is equitable and discretionary. It is not a guarantee.

Trust law exists so that when a person decides what happens to what they built, the decision sticks. Every rule in this area — the notification requirement, the contest deadline, the no-contest clause, and the reformation remedy — serves that single purpose. The tension between these rules is not a flaw. It is the system working as intended: making sure the words in a trust actually match the wishes of the person who created it.

Dana sent the notification. She waited out the 120 days. She relied on the no-contest clause. She did everything the playbook told her to do. But the law has a longer memory than a deadline, and a deeper loyalty than a forfeiture provision. Its loyalty is to the settlor’s intent — and a professional fiduciary who understands that loyalty will not be caught off guard by what comes next.

If you are a trustee and a reformation petition has been filed — or if you want to ensure your trust administration is prepared to withstand one — Watson Law Group, APC can help. We represent trustees in trust contests, reformation proceedings, and all aspects of California trust administration.

Disclaimer: The characters and scenarios described in this article — including Dana, Tom Linden, and his two sons — are composites created for educational and illustrative purposes. They do not represent any actual persons, living or deceased, or any specific trust, estate, or legal matter handled by Watson Law Group, APC. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every trust dispute involves unique facts and circumstances. If you are facing a reformation petition, a no-contest clause dispute, or any trust administration challenge, you should consult with an experienced trust litigation attorney about your specific situation.

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