Getty v. Getty

In Getty v. Getty (1986) 187 Cal. App. 3d 1159, the issue was whether a trust could be reformed because of the trustors' mistake of fact. (Id. at p. 1179.) The court held: "The sole purpose of the reformation doctrine is to correct a written instrument in order to effectuate a common intention of the parties which was incorrectly reduced to writing. A court cannot, under a theory of reformation, create a new agreement for the parties which conforms to circumstances other than those that they had mistakenly assumed were true. If the written instrument accurately reflects the agreement of the parties, albeit an agreement based upon a mistaken assumption of fact, an action for reformation does not lie. " (Id. at p. 1178.) Reformation is unavailable unless there is "a specific agreement to which the writing can be reformed; it must be shown that the parties have agreed to the terms of the contract as sought to be established." (Getty v. Getty, supra, 187 Cal. App. 3d at p. 1180; Civ. Code, 3399.) Pursuant to Getty v. Getty, Code of Civil Procedure section 338, subdivision (d), is the applicable statute of limitations. Section 338, subdivision (d), imposes a three-year statute of limitations for "an action for relief on the ground of fraud or mistake." The statute provides: "The cause of action . . . is not deemed to have accrued until the discovery, by the aggrieved party, of the facts constituting the fraud or mistake." In Getty the court concluded that the three-year statute of limitations on a beneficiary's action to reform a trust "began to run on the earliest date that the beneficiary can be charged with facts constituting the mistake." (Getty v. Getty, supra, 187 Cal.App.3d at p. 1169.) The beneficiary was charged with knowledge as of 1940. "Therefore, the period within which to seek reformation of the trust instrument expired in 1943." (Ibid.)