Re Ellen B. Segur's Will

• Citation: 44 A. 342,71 Vt. 224
• Parties: RE ELLEN B. SEGUR'S WILL
• Decision Date: 03 February 1899
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Vermont

44 A. 342

71 Vt. 224

RE ELLEN B. SEGUR'S WILL

Supreme Court of Vermont

February 3, 1899

October Term, 1898.

APPEAL FROM PROBATE. Trial by jury at the May term, 1898, Windsor county, Ross, C. J., presiding. Verdict and judgment for the proponent. The contestant excepted.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded for a new trial.

W E. Johnson and Wm. Batchelder for the contestant, argued upon the first point as the court holds and upon the second point contended that inasmuch as substantially the whole property was sought to be disposed of under one particular clause of the will, which clause the contestant claimed to be void as against public policy, the court should consider and decide that question as well as the other, in the hope of avoiding a retrial of the cause.

Hunton & Stickney for the proponent.

Present ROWELL, TYLER, MUNSON, START and THOMPSON, JJ.

OPINION

THOMPSON

One issue on the trial below, was whether Ellen B. Segur, the testatrix, was of sound mind at the time she executed the will in question. The evidence of the contestant tended to prove that she was subject to insane delusions as to her acquaintances, friends and relatives, and that at such times she was unable to judge sanely in relation to the persons in respect to whom she held such delusions; and that she was laboring under such an insane delusion in regard to her son, the contestant, at the time she executed the will sought to be established. On this branch of the case the jury were instructed, among other things, as follows: "Take the witnesses of the contestant or the witnesses of the proponent, any of them, would they have been at a loss to have dealt with her in regard to this property on the occasion she made this will, under the circumstances that she made it? That is a good way to test whether from all their testimony, and their judgment on it, where they give their judgment, that is, whether she was capable, competent or not competent, sound or unsound, testate or intestate. It is a good way to test their acts in comparison with what they say they consider her condition."

It must be taken that the testimony referred to in this instruction was relevant to the issue as to the will being the product of an insane delusion of the testatrix in respect to the contestant. By this instruction, the jury must have understood that if the witnesses considered the testatrix to be of such mental capacity that they would have dealt with her in regard to her property, then their testimony had no tendency to prove that she was laboring under an insane delusion as to the contestant and that the will in question was the product of such delusion.

Evidence of delusions is not necessarily countervailed by evidence of business capacity as to ordinary business transactions. The fact that a man is capable of transacting business, whatever its extent, or however complicated it may be, and however considerable the powers of intellect it may require, does not exclude the idea of his being of unsound mind. 1 Clevenger's Med. Juris. 297; Morse v. Scott, 4 Demarest 507; Smee v. Smee, L. R. 5 Prob. Div. 84; Manley's Exr. v. Staples, 65 Vt. 370; Fraser v. Jennison, 42 Mich. 206; Rivard v. Rivard, 109 Mich. 98: 66 N.W. 681; Tawney v. Long, 76 Pa. 106; Taylor v. Trich, 165 Pa. 586: 44 Am. St. Rep. 679 and note.

To have the capacity to make a will, a man must be able to know the number of...