Mahoney v. Grainger
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
186 N.E. 86 (1933)
Helen Sullivan told her attorney, ten days before her death, that she wanted her twenty-five first cousins to share her estate's residue equally, but the will he drafted instead left the residue to her "heirs at law living at the time of my decease...to be divided among them equally, share and share alike"; Sullivan signed the will after it was read to her, but upon her death her sole heir at law turned out to be her maternal aunt, not her cousins. The probate court denied the cousins' petition for distribution, finding "heirs at law" unambiguous and thus barring testimony of Sullivan's stated intent, and the cousins appealed.
Whether, where the language of a will is not ambiguous or susceptible to different meanings, testimony may be offered as evidence of the testator's intention in interpreting the meaning of that language.