Bain v. Cline

• Decision Date: 27 June 1893
• Citation: Bain v. Cline, 24 Or. 175, 33 P. 542 (Or. 1893)
• Parties: BAIN et al. v. CLINE et al.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

33 P. 542

24 Or. 175

BAIN et al. v. CLINE et al.

Supreme Court of Oregon

June 27, 1893

Appeal from circuit court, Multnomah county; Loyal B. Stearns Judge.

Proceeding by Anne E. Bain and others against Jacob Cline and others to set aside the will of Jacob Cline, deceased.From a decree of the circuit court affirming an order sustaining the validity of the will, contestants appeal.Affirmed.

J.H Mitchell and A.H. Tanner, for appellants.

R. & E.B. Williams, for respondents.

PER CURIAM.

This was a proceeding instituted in the county court of Multnomah county by the contestants to have the order admitting the will of Jacob Cline, deceased, vacated, and the will set aside and declared void.The testator executed this will at Portland, Or., in August, 1888, and died at San Bernardino Cal., in December of the same year.By its terms his children Anne E. Bain, Mary P. Sax, Isabella Cook, and John Cline, and his grandchildren Lewis Cline, Laura Cline, Kate Cline, and Antha Cline, the children of Antha Cline, a deceased daughter, were left the nominal sum of one dollar each, and all the rest of his property was bequeathed and devised to his other two children Jacob Cline, Jr., and Jane Tunstall who were appointed executor and executrix thereof without bonds.The grounds upon which the will is alleged to be void are that the testator, at the time it was executed, was, and for many years previous had been, a monomaniac, or the victim of an insane delusion in reference to the children who were disinherited, and had without any adequate reason conceived the idea that they had deeply wronged him by taking sides with their mother, and falsely testifying against him in a divorce suit between himself and his wife; that they did not respect him, and were trying to rob him of his property; and that, while laboring under these impressions, he formed a prejudice towards them, and dwelt upon their supposed misconduct, until he had become the victim of an insane delusion, under the influence of which, and by means of the alleged inducement and fraudulent misrepresentations of the devisees, he made the will in question.The county court sustained the validity of the will, and made an order re-probating it, from which the contestants appealed to the circuit court, where a decree was rendered affirming the order of the county court, from which the contestants appeal to this court.

The testimony discloses that from the time of his marriage until about 1862 the testator had been kind to his wife and affectionate to his children, but about that time he made a visit to the eastern states, and upon his return brought with him a woman whom he kept in his house against the protest of his wife, who, in consequence of his misconduct, obtained a divorce from him.At the trial of that suit most of the children whom he disinherited were called as witnesses for their mother, and he then formed...