IN RE: the Validity or Effect of the Notice of Election Under EPTL § 5-1.1-A in the Estate of Rebecca A. Magnanti a/k/a REBECCA MAGNANTI (2026)

Before the Court is the motion of James Magnanti (the "petitioner"), the surviving spouse of the decedent, for a summary judgment, pursuant to CPLR § 3212, determining, as a matter of law, that the Notice of Election he filed pursuant to EPTL § 5-1.1-A is valid and effective and that he is entitled to his elective share of the decedent's estate, together with costs.

Jeremy Ryan and Janine Little, the co-executors of the decedent's estate (the "co-executors"), oppose the motion. The co-executors filed objections to the Notice of Election in reliance upon a prenuptial agreement purportedly executed by the petitioner and the decedent on or about March 8, 2015 (the "Agreement"), under which each party allegedly waived all rights as a surviving spouse in the property, assets, or estate of the other. The motion was submitted on the papers, together with the Agreement, the sworn affidavits of the parties and a purported subscribing witness, and the affirmations of counsel. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is granted.

Background

Rebecca A. Magnanti a/k/a Rebecca Magnanti ("decedent") died on October 14, 2024. She was survived by her spouse, the petitioner, and by children from a prior relationship, including the co-executors. The decedent and the petitioner were married on March 15, 2015. The decedent's Last Will and Testament, which was admitted to probate, and under which Letters Testamentary issued to the co-executors on August 20, 2025, does not name the petitioner as a beneficiary.

On August 25, 2025, the petitioner filed a Notice of Election pursuant to EPTL § 5-1.1-A, asserting his right as the decedent's surviving spouse to take an elective share of the estate. On October 24, 2025, the co-executors filed objections to the Notice of Election, relying upon the Agreement, the Eighteenth Article of which provides that the parties "waive and release the other from any and all rights of every kind, nature, and description that each may acquire as spouse or surviving spouse in the property, assets, or estate of the other."

The Agreement bears what purport to be the signatures of the petitioner and the decedent, dated March 8, 2015, followed by two signatures placed upon lines beneath the handwritten word "Witnesses." The instrument concludes with two Certificates of Acknowledgment, one for each party, in standard form. It is undisputed that each Certificate of Acknowledgment is entirely blank, and that the parties' signatures were never separately acknowledged before a notary public or any other officer authorized to take acknowledgments.

The record developed on this motion is, in many respects, conflicting. The co-executors have submitted proof, through the affirmation of Christopher R. Bray, Esq., that the decedent consulted counsel concerning the Agreement in or about 2021; that she regarded the Agreement as valid and binding; that the parties conducted their financial affairs separately throughout their nine-year marriage; and that, in reliance upon the Agreement, the decedent elected not to undertake further estate planning to protect her assets. The petitioner, for his part, maintains that he did not draft the Agreement, does not recall signing it, and suspects the decedent may have forged his signature; and a purported subscribing witness, the petitioner's son James Louis Magnanti, has submitted an affidavit swearing that the witnesses did not observe the parties sign. The Court does not resolve these competing accounts because, as explained below, they are not material to the disposition of this motion.

Legal Standard

It is well settled that summary judgment should be granted where there are no material issues of fact in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law (Winegrad v. New York Univ. Med. Ctr., 64 NY2d 851 [1985]). The moving party must make a prima facie showing of entitlement to judgment by offering sufficient admissible evidence to demonstrate the absence of a triable issue of material fact (CPLR 3212[b]; see Zuckerman v. City of NY, 49 NY2d 557, 562 [1980]; Alvarez v. Prospect Hosp., 68 NY2d 320 [1986]). The burden then shifts to the non-moving party to come forward with evidentiary proof in admissible form sufficient to require a trial of material questions of fact (Zuckerman, supra).

A factual dispute will defeat summary judgment only where it is material, i.e. where its resolution would affect the outcome under the governing law. Disputes as to facts that are immaterial to the dispositive legal question, however genuine, do not require a trial and do not preclude judgment as a matter of law (see People ex rel. Spitzer v. Grasso, 50 AD3d 535, 545 [1st Dept 2008] citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 US 242, 248 [1986] "[o]nly disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment"). Where the controlling question is one of law to be determined upon undisputed facts, summary judgment is appropriate.

A surviving spouse possesses a personal right of election to take a share of the decedent's estate (EPTL § 5-1.1-A), which may be waived or released before or during the marriage. To be effective, however, such a waiver or release "must be in writing and subscribed by the maker thereof and acknowledged or proved in the manner required by the laws of this state for the recording of a conveyance of real property" (EPTL § 5-1.1-A[e][2]; see Domestic Relations Law § 236[B][3]).

Discussion

The Absence of an Acknowledgment Is Dispositive

The acknowledgment required for the recording of a conveyance of real property is prescribed by the Real Property Law. The signing party must acknowledge before a notary or other authorized officer that he or she in fact executed the instrument (Real Property Law § 292); the officer must know or have satisfactory evidence of the identity of the signer (Real Property Law § 303); and the officer must execute and attach a certificate attesting to those matters (Real Property Law § 306). The Court of Appeals has long held that an acknowledgment which fails to include the requisite certification is defective, and that the absence of an acknowledgment renders the instrument invalid and incapable of cure (Galetta v. Galetta, 21 NY3d 186, 193—196 [2013], citing Matter of Fryer v. Rockefeller, 63 NY 268 [1875]). The acknowledgment requirement serves "to impose a measure of deliberation and impress upon the signer the significance of the document," a purpose that, the Court of Appeals has explained, cannot be fulfilled retroactively where the acknowledgment was never taken (Galetta, 21 NY3d at 196).

These principles govern a prenuptial agreement offered as a waiver of the right of election. In Matter of Koegel (Anderson v. Anderson, 37 NY3d 444 [2021]), the Court of Appeals confirmed that such an agreement must satisfy the same acknowledgment requirements as a deed, and permitted a defective acknowledgment to be cured by extrinsic evidence only because the acknowledgments there were "defective, as opposed to absent," and were deficient "due to no fault of" the parties (id. at 451—452). The Court rested its holding upon the distinction between a defective acknowledgment, which may in appropriate circumstances be cured, and an absent acknowledgment, which may not.

Here, the dispositive fact is undisputed and apparent on the face of the instrument, i.e. the Agreement was never acknowledged. The Certificates of Acknowledgment appended to the Agreement were never completed, never signed, and never executed by any notary public or other authorized officer. This is not a case of a defective or irregular acknowledgment that the parties attempted, in good faith, to obtain; it is a case in which no acknowledgment was ever taken at all. The co-executors' reliance upon Ryerson v. Ryerson, 221 AD3d 1086 [3d Dept 2023], is unavailing. Ryerson addressed a merely defective acknowledgment and applied the Anderson framework for curing such defects. Where, as here, the acknowledgment is wholly absent, there is nothing to cure, and the instrument is void as a waiver of the right of election as a matter of law (EPTL § 5-1.1-A[e][2]; Galetta, 21 NY3d at 196).

The Remaining Questions, Though Substantial, Are Not Material

The Court does not lightly disregard the matters the co-executors have raised. The record presents serious and genuine questions concerning the parties' intent, their good faith, and the equities between them. There is evidence from which a trier of fact might find that both parties intended to be bound by the Agreement; that they ordered their affairs for nearly a decade in reliance upon it; that the decedent, believing the Agreement valid, forwent other measures by which she might have protected her estate; and that the petitioner, having presented the Agreement to the decedent and having known of its execution, now questions the Agreement only because it now serves his interest.

They cannot, however, alter the result. The Legislature has prescribed a single, mandatory formality for the waiver of the right of election, and the Court of Appeals has held that the absence of a proper acknowledgment is fatal and incurable. That requirement is not satisfied by proof of the parties' subjective intentions, however sincere, nor by evidence of their course of conduct, however consistent. The questions of intent and good faith that the co-executors press are immaterial to the controlling legal question, and a factual dispute that cannot affect the outcome does not preclude summary judgment.

For the same reason, the doctrine of equitable estoppel, upon which the co-executors alternatively rely, cannot save the Agreement. An instrument that is void for non-compliance with a mandatory statutory formality is void as to all parties and for all purposes.

The Court has considered the co-executors' remaining contentions and finds them either legally immaterial to the dispositive question of statutory compliance or insufficient to raise a triable issue of fact. The Court does not reach the disputed questions concerning the authenticity of the parties' signatures, the circumstances of the witnessing, or the admissibility of the testimony of Attorneys Bray and Graziadei, because the disposition of this motion does not depend upon their resolution.

Because the Agreement was never acknowledged, it is void and unenforceable as a waiver of the right of election as a matter of law, and it cannot operate as a bar to the petitioner's election. The petitioner, as the decedent's undisputed surviving spouse, has established his prima facie entitlement to a determination that his Notice of Election is valid, and the co-executors, whatever triable questions they have raised as to other matters, have raised none that bears upon the dispositive legal question presently before the Court.

NOW THEREFORE, it is hereby

ORDERED, that the petitioner's motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, GRANTED; and it is further

ORDERED, that the prenuptial agreement dated March 8, 2015 be, and hereby is, declared void and unenforceable as a waiver or release of the right of election under EPTL § 5-1.1-A(e)(2); and it is further

ORDERED, that the Notice of Election filed by the petitioner James Magnanti on August 25, 2025 be, and hereby is, determined to be valid and effective, and that the petitioner is entitled to his elective share of the estate of the decedent as provided by EPTL § 5-1.1-A; and it is further

ORDERED, that the objections of the co-executors to the Notice of Election be, and hereby are, DISMISSED.

Dated: June 22, 2026

Hon. Louis P. Gigliotti, Acting Surrogate

Louis P. Gigliotti, S.