Cabral

Plaintiff Tammy Cabral appeals from an adverse judgment entered after the trial court sustained without leave to amend a demurrer addressed to her original complaint. Plaintiff alleges that her former husband James E. Cabral is substantially delinquent in payments of spousal and child support. To prevent her from enforcing these obligations plaintiff alleges that James and his sister Mary L. Soares induced their mother to change her will to leave to Mary the one-third of her estate that she had previously designated to go to James, with the understanding that Mary would subsequently “get that money to” him. The mother, Edwina Cabral, has now died and her estate includes real property with an estimated fair market value in excess of $500,000. We conclude that the trial court correctly sustained a general demurrer to the complaint which seeks to reach one-third of the value of the estate, but that it erred in refusing to grant leave to amend to correctly plead a cause of action under which plaintiff ultimately may be entitled to prevail.

Background

Plaintiff’s complaint alleges that as of November 2005 James was delinquent in paying court-ordered spousal and child support…