My father tore up his will because he wrongly believed my brother had died abroad — now that we know that's false, is the revocation still valid?

The article is unqualified on its face

A revocation of a will based on a false cause or an illegal cause is null and void. Null and void, not merely open to challenge: on the article's own terms the revocation never took effect, and the will it was meant to undo was never revoked. The premise is that revoking is a deliberate act with a reason behind it, and that a reason which does not exist cannot support the act. A father who destroys his will because he has been told his son is dead has not decided to disinherit a living son; he has responded to a fact that was not a fact.

Two things happened, and both must be proved

Article 830 recognises revocation By burning, tearing, cancelling, or obliterating the will with the intention of revoking it, by the testator himself, or by some other person in his presence, and by his express direction. The physical act here is not in doubt — he tore it. What Article 833 attacks is the reason. So the case turns on evidence about his state of mind: that he believed your brother had died, that the belief was false, and that it was this belief rather than some other grievance that produced the tearing. Letters, messages, what he said at the time, and the source of the false report all carry weight.

The neighbouring provision, and what it does not settle

Article 850 deals with a false cause in a different setting — the institution of an heir — and it is qualified: the false statement is treated as not written unless it appears from the will that the testator would not have made such institution if he had known the falsity of such cause. Article 833 contains no comparable words. Whether a similar requirement is nevertheless read into it, and how a court would treat a revocation whose reason was never written down anywhere, is not answered by the text of either article, and this page does not resolve it. It is exactly the point on which the family should take advice.

What to preserve now

The practical difficulty is that the will is in pieces. Keep every fragment, keep any draft or copy the drafter or notary retained, and record who witnessed the tearing and what he said while doing it. Establish the false report of death with documents rather than recollection: the message that carried it, its date, and where it came from. Find out whether he made any later will, because Article 832 provides that a revocation contained in a subsequent will takes effect even where that later will becomes inoperative. Those facts decide whether Article 833 has anything to work on.

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 833 — Revocation on a False Cause
• Civil Code, Article 830 — The Three Ways to Revoke
• Civil Code, Article 832 — Revocation Stands Even If the Later Will Fails
• Civil Code, Article 850 — A False Cause for the Institution