Carpenter's Estate, In re
Citation | 253 So.2d 697 |
Decision Date | 09 June 1971 |
Docket Number | No. 40359,40359 |
Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Parties | In re ESTATE of Coketine Bray CARPENTER, Deceased. Ben CARPENTER, II, and William Bary Carpenter, Petitioners, v. Mary Redman CARPENTER, Respondent. |
F. Perry Odom, LeRoy Collins and N. Sanders Sauls, of Ervin, Pennington, Varn & Jacobs, Tallahassee, and George E. Hovis, Leesburg, for petitioners.
Robert M. Sturrup and Thomas A. Thomas, of sturrup & Della-Donna, Fort Lauderdale, for respondent.
Harlan Tuck, of Giles, Hedrick & Robinson, Orlando, for amicus curiae.
By petition for writ of certiorari, we are asked to review the decision of the District Court of Appeal, Fourth District, 239 So.2d 506 (Fla.App.4th, 1970), which reversed the order of the County Judge's Court of Orange County adjudicating that the will of Coketine Bray Carpenter, deceased, was procured by under influence and was therefore void and not entitled to probate.
Conflict is asserted with In Re Estate of MacPhee, 187 So.2d 679 (Fla.App.2d, 1966), and In Re Estate of Reid, 138 So.2d 342 (Fla.App.3rd, 1962), pursuant to Fla.Const. Art. V, Sec. 4(2), F.S.A., and F.A.R. 4.5, subd. c(6), 32 F.S.A. We have jurisdiction.
By her last will and testament, prepared and executed four days fefore her death, Mrs. Coketine Bray Carpenter left her entire estate outright to her daughter, Mary Redman Carpenter. She left nothing to her three surviving sons, Ben, Sam and Bill. Ben and Bill contested probate of the will on the ground that it was procured by undue influence.
In his order adjudicating the will in question to have been procured by undue influence, the County Judge made the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:
'1. That that certain purported will of Coketine Bray Carpenter, the above decedent * * * was signed by the said decedent at the end thereof in the presence of two attesting witness who were present at the same time the testatrix signed the said will; * * *
'3. That the decedent was a widow and the mother of a grown daughter, Mary, and three grown sons, Ben, Sam, and Bill; that of all her said children the decedent was most fond of Ben; that Ben substantially assisted the decedent, both financially and otherwise, more than her other children; that on many occasions the decedent expressed a considered intention to leave her estate equally to her four children; that there was no evidence that subsequent to such expressions of intent any event transpired which under normal circumstances would have influenced the decedent to depart from her said intention; that there was no evidence that the decedent had ever had a will other than the said purported will; that in the absence of a will the decedent's estate would, by the law of intestacy, have been divided equally among her four children, which fact the decedent is presument to have known '4. That a confidential relationship existed between Mary and the decedent;
Mary, the proponent, appealed. The District Court of Appeal restated the facts in its opinion, emphasizing certain testimony not included in the findings of the trial judge, as follows:
The conclusions of the District Court were: (1) that there was sufficient credible evidence to rebut the presumption of undue influence raised by the county judge's finding that Mary had a confidential relationship with her mother and that she actively procured the will; and (2) that without the presumption, the evidence before the county judge was insufficient as a matter of law to support a finding of undue influence. The order of the county judge was therefore reversed, and the will reinstated.
We are concerned with four interrelated issues in this case: (1) whether there was sufficient evidence before the county judge to raise a presumption of undue influence; (2) if so, whether the burden of proof, or merely the burden of going forward with the evidence, then shifted to the proponent to prove her case; (3) whether the presumption was rebutted (this issue also involves a consideration of the strength of the showing which must be made to rebut the presumption and whether the county judge or the District Court is empowered to decide this); and finally, (4) whether the evidence before the county judge, aside from the presumption, was insufficient as sa matter of law, to permit him to conclude a matter of law, to permit him to conclude these issues in order.
Preliminarily, we note that Fla.Stat. § 732.31, F.S.A., provides that the proponent of a contested will has the burden of proving, prima facie, the formal execution and attestation of the will. When this has been done, the statute shifts the burden of proof to the contestant, 'to establish the facts constituting the grounds upon which the probate of such purported will is opposed or revocation thereof is sought.' As both the county judge's order and the opinion of the District Court noted, the...
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