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Question of Fact Whether Defendant’s Negligence Precluded Her Reliance on the Doctrine of Mutual Mistake to Rescind a Valid Oral Contract

The First Department determined there a question of fact about defendant’s negligence and the related applicability of the doctrine of mutual mistake. The parties orally agreed to share funeral expenses and commence a lost will proceeding based upon the understanding that the original will could not be found.  However, the original will was subsequently found.  The defendant moved to rescind the contract on the basis of mutual mistake and Supreme Court granted the motion.  In reversing, the First Department noted the doctrine of mutual mistake would not be available if defendant were negligent in initially failing to find the will, and a question of fact had been raised about defendant’s negligence in that regard:

Plaintiff met her obligations under the agreement to pay one half of the decedent’s funeral expenses and attorneys fees for the proceeding. Defendant did, as required, commence a lost will proceeding. Both parties thus fulfilled the terms of the oral agreement. It was only less than one month before the hearing on the lost will proceeding was to commence that defendant’s husband found the original will in the same box which defendant had searched prior to entering into the agreement. It was at that point that defendant attempted to abrogate the contract. It is noteworthy that defendant, in her motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint argued that the contract should be rescinded due to a mutual mistake as to the existence of the original will. The question of mutual mistake, therefore, is central to the disposition of this case.

Defendant’s alleged negligence in searching for the original 1991 will, the absence of which formed the basis of the oral agreement to commence a lost will proceeding, is an important factor in determining whether the doctrine of mutual mistake may be invoked to rescind this otherwise valid oral agreement. ” Mistake, to be available in equity, must not have arisen from negligence, where the means of knowledge were easily accessible.'” … . The doctrine of mutual mistake “may not be invoked by a party to avoid the consequences of its own negligence” … . Gitelson v Quinn, 2014 NY Slip Op 03942, 1st Dept 5-3-14

 

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