Radovich

Plaintiff Rafael Radovich appeals from a judgment, for defendants William F. Locke-Paddon (an attorney) and the law firm by which Locke-Paddon was employed, based on summary adjudication of issues in consolidated civil actions. The trial court was called upon to answer two questions of law:

We shall conclude that the trial court’s answers were correct, and shall affirm the judgment.

The facts material to the issues before us are essentially undisputed.

Radovich married Mary Ann Borina (the decedent) in 1957. Shortly before they married, Radovich and the decedent signed a form of prenuptial agreement, prepared for the decedent-by the law firm, which stated among other things that each party’s property, owned at or acquired after the marriage, and each party’s earnings after the marriage, should be and remain his or her separate property, and that “[n]o community property shall exist during the marriage . . . .”

It appears that the law firm may have prepared a will for Radovich in 1970; its provisions are not before us.

In November 1973 the decedent executed a will, prepared by the law firm, which, after specific gifts to Radovich and others, would give the residue of…