In Battuello v. Battuello (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 842, the plaintiff had repeatedly been promised that he would receive the family vineyard when his father died. Nevertheless, his parents executed a trust in 1994 that stated the plaintiff would not receive the vineyard as he had been promised. Plaintiff's father died on December 10, 1995. The plaintiff objected when he learned the terms of the 1994 trust, but received assurances from his mother that he would receive the vineyard no later than the end of 1996. When his mother repudiated her agreement, the plaintiff filed a complaint against his mother, both individually and in her capacity as trustee of a family trust, and against his deceased father's estate, seeking to establish an interest in a vineyard that he claimed his father had promised to give to him. The mother demurred to the complaint on the grounds the action was time-barred by section 366.2. The plaintiff argued that section 366.2 did not apply, since a cause of action alleging a contract to make a will cannot come into existence until after the promissor dies. The Court of Appeal found that since the plaintiff's father transferred the vineyard into the trust in 1994, the plaintiff had a cause of action prior to his father's death. Because the cause of action existed prior to death, section 366.2 was applicable. (Battuello, supra, 64 Cal.App.4th at pp. 846-847.) What is noteworthy about the Battuello decision, is that the court used the 1996 version of section 366.2 despite the fact that the plaintiff's father died in 1995. Thus, it noted that even if no cause of action had accrued prior to the father's death, section 366.2 still barred the action. ( Id. at p. 847, fn. 1.) The Court observed that section 366.2 applies to causes of action that "exist at the time of a person's death." ( Id. at p. 846.) The court endorsed the general rule that section 366.2 cannot be applied to a cause of action alleging a promise to leave certain property in a will because such a cause of action "neither 'accrues' prior to the promisor's death nor 'survives' his death." (Ibid.) The court in Battuello found an exception to this general rule in a case where the promisor had during his lifetime made a transfer of the promised property to another. In that circumstance, a cause of action did exist prior to the decedent's death and section 366.2 therefore applied. In sum, the court reversed a judgment entered following the sustaining of a demurrer. The complaint alleged that, in reliance upon his mother's false promise that he would inherit a vineyard, the plaintiff had not timely filed an action to enforce his deceased father's promise to give him the vineyard. The court held that these allegations were sufficient to support a claim that the mother was equitably estopped from asserting that the plaintiff's action was barred by the statute of limitations. (Id., at p. 848.)