Heffner v. Heffner

Decision Date15 June 1896
Docket Number12,179
CourtLouisiana Supreme Court
PartiesJACKSON HEFFNER ET ALS. v. JAMES HEFFNER, EXECUTOR, ET ALS

Argued June 5, 1896

APPEAL from the First Judicial District Court for the Parish of Caddo. Land, J.

Harrison & Aston and D. T. Land, for Plaintiffs, Appellees.

Wise &amp Herndon, for Defendants, Appellants.

OPINION

MILLER J.

This appeal is from the judgment of the lower court annulling the will, olographic in form, of William Heffner, rendered in the suit of his collateral heirs seeking to set it aside. The ground of attack sustained by the judgment was that the will has no date. Omitting its dispositions the will is in this form:

"State of Louisiana,

"Caddo parish,

"Written dated and signed in my own handwriting, on this day of June 1893.

"WILLIAM HEFFNER."

The Code defines the olographic will to be that written, dated and signed by the testator himself. The date, signature and the entirety of the will in the handwriting of the testator are the essentials. C. C., Art. 1588. The testament in this form carries none of the guarantees the law provides in respect to wills in the other forms prescribed by the Code to prevent forgeries. The nuncupative will by public act is written by the public officer, appointed by law for the purpose; is attested by him and the witnesses, as the expression of the testator's wishes, dictated to the notary and signed by the testator. The nuncupative will under private signature requires witnesses and the fulfilment of other conditions required by law, to entitle such papers to credit as acts of last will. Civil Code, Arts. 1578, 1581, 1584, et seq. When the Code comes to prescribe the olographic testament, the notary, the witnesses and all forms of authentication are dispensed with, and the requirement is that such a will to have validity must be wholly written, dated and signed by the hand of the testator. The policy of the law to secure the true representation of the testator's wishes and guard against fraudulent wills is marked in the requisite of the testator's handwriting, including the expression of the date when he writes the paper and affixes the signature it bears. The date in the testator's handwriting is part of the evidence the law requires of the verity of the instrument. If the paper is forged, the date it must bear may furnish the means of detection. On any issue of the sanity of the testator the dates indicate and restrict the period of inquiry. There are other reasons suggested by the French authorities, all enforcing the date of the olographic will as indispensable to its validity. Napoleon Code, Art. 970; 3 Troplong, par. 1479; Coin Delisle, 542.

The date in its ordinary sense imports the day of the month, the month and the...

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37 cases
  • Montague v. Street
    • United States
    • North Dakota Supreme Court
    • July 30, 1930
    ...the contraction Oct. is written and doubtless would be considered the name of the month, but no day is given. But in Heffner v. Heffner, 48 La. Ann. 1089, 20 So. 281, it held: “The day of the month is quite as much a part of the date as the month or the year,” and the requirements that a wi......
  • Montague v. Street
    • United States
    • North Dakota Supreme Court
    • February 25, 1930
    ...law for the execution of holographic wills must be strictly observed, or the will is void." 28 R.C.L. 161; Re Beird, 48 La. 1089; Hoffner v. Hoffner, 20 So. 281; Succession, 49 La. 868, 62 Am. St. Rep. 672, 21 So. 586; Re Anthony, 21 Cal.App. 157, 131 P. 96; Price's Estate, 14 Cal. 462, 112......
  • Boyd v. Kansas City
    • United States
    • Missouri Supreme Court
    • February 9, 1922
    ... ... Kansas City, 179 S.W. 762; Reid v ... Kansas City, 192 S.W. 1049; City of East Chicago v ... Gilbert, 59 Ind.App. 613; Heffner v. Heffner, ... 48 La. Ann. 1088; Brenner v. Chicago, 182 Ill.App ... 348. (2) The institution of the suit itself by filing ... original ... ...
  • Succession of Gaudin
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US
    • February 28, 1962
    ...favor this position,--that is, that such evidence is not admissible. A landmark case in this respect is that of Heffner et al. v. Heffner, 48 La.Ann. 1088, 20 So. 281 (1896). This case deals with the probate of an olographic will which was dated as follows: 'This $ $ day of June, 1893'. In ......
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