Batson v. Batson

• Decision Date: 10 May 1928
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 770
• Citation: 217 Ala. 450,117 So. 10
• Parties: BATSON et al. v. BATSON et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

117 So. 10

217 Ala. 450

BATSON et al. v. BATSON et al.

7 Div. 770

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 10, 1928

Appeal from Circuit Court, Talladega County; R.B. Carr, Judge.

Bill in equity by E.O. Batson and D.C. Batson against James W Batson, individually and as executor of the will of J.P Batson, deceased, and others, to contest said will. From a decree for complainants, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Knox Dixon, Sims & Bingham, of Talladega, for appellants.

Harrison & Stringer, of Talladega, and Hugh A. Locke, of Birmingham, for appellees.

THOMAS J.

The contest in chancery is of the probate of a will. The facts were submitted to a jury duly demanded. Code, §§ 10617, 10640; Wachter v. Davis, 215 Ala. 659, 111 So. 917; Ala. T. & N. Ry. Co. v. Aliceville Lumber Co., 199 Ala. 391, 402, 74 So. 441.

The grounds of contests were sufficient, and duly presented the issue of fact of decedent's mental capacity--that testator was of unsound mind at the time of the execution of the will. Wear v. Wear, 200 Ala. 345, 76 So. 111; Barksdale v. Davis, 114 Ala. 623, 627, 22 So. 17. The issue of undue influence was eliminated by instruction of the court.

There was no error in overruling demurrer to subdivision E of paragraph 4 of the bill. It is as follows:

"The said J.P. Batson, deceased, was suffering from a mental delusion to the effect that complainant E.O. Batson had defrauded him of certain funds during the winding up of the business of Batson Grocery Company, which complainants allege and offer to prove was without foundation, in fact, merely an insane delusion on the part of the said J.P. Batson, deceased, and that the said insane delusion so operated upon the mind of the said J.P. Batson, deceased, that he was incapable of making the said will at the time the same was executed."

It set forth the insane "delusion" and its facts, avers that it had no foundation in fact, yet that this delusion so affected testator as to render him incapable of making a will under the law. Florey's Ex'rs v. Florey, 24 Ala. 241; L.R.A.1915A, 459, note; 27 L.R.A. (N.S.) 68.

If one, against "all evidence and probability, persistently believes supposed facts which have no existence except in his perverted imagination, and conducts himself, however logically, upon the assumption of their existence, he is, so far as they are concerned, under an insane delusion," is the definition contained in Re Riordan's Estate, 13 Cal.App. 313, 109 P. 629; L.R.A. 1915A, 459; In re Alexander, 246 Pa. 58, 91 A. 1042, Ann.Cas. 1916C, 33. That is to say, the belief in a state of supposed facts that do not exist, and which no rational person would believe, in the absence of evidence, to exist, is an insane delusion. See Lanham v. Lanham, 62 Tex.Civ.App. 431, 146 S.W. 635; 40 Cyc. 1031-1, and authorities.

In Johnson v. Johnson, 105 Md. 81, 65 A. 918, 121 Am.St.Rep. 570, 573, it is declared that, to avoid a will because the testator entertained a delusion, that delusion must be an insane delusion, and the will must be the product thereof. The definition of such delusion employed in the Johnson Case was:

"A belief in things impossible, or, though possible, so improbable under the surrounding circumstances that no man of sound mind could give them credence."

The evidence of Matthews, Thompson, and McKinnon was sufficient to present an issue of fact on general insanity. The witnesses' detailed facts--their long acquaintance with Mr. Batson, his unprovoked fits of anger and loss of self-control, action on the street as to his son, demanding money of him, his conduct as to the old or worn automobiles, and suggestion that they should be sold at the original cost, his changed and unnatural habits of business and insufficient dress, his neglected personal appearance, his many and unnatural memoranda found among his effects as to his son. Batson, Bowden, and Wheelock, the testimony tending to connect him with the damage to the son's automobile, the traces of insanity in his immediate ancestors--when considered with the other evidence were sufficient to submit the question of general insanity. The evidence of Robinson, Dr. Ward, and West was to the same end and effect.

The evidence of Levie and Robinson was to the effect of testator's unrestrained declarations as to his son and that he did not receive anything from the old business; his mental status or his intention with which he acted as to the provision in his will for the nominal sum given one of his sons.

The evidence of E.O. and H.N. Batson was that instead of such statement (to Levie and Robinson being true) the father had received a large sum from said business.

The evidence of McKinnon was to the effect that said corporate business was duly closed at the instance of testator and with his approval. If testator believed he had not received a cent therefrom, when he did receive about $40,000, this was some evidence for the jury of an insane delusion as to such matter and his son's participation therein. There is no evidence in the record that E.O. Batson stole his father's money as the latter repeatedly stated to said witnesses. Mr. Batson must have believed his son guilty, and yet the facts wholly fail to support him in this unwarranted and unnatural belief. It was for the jury to say whether this belief was the result of a deranged condition of his mind that amounted to an insane delusion vitiating his will.

The evidence bearing upon the several elements of an insane delusion is voluminous, and it is impractical to discuss it in detail without unduly extending this opinion.

In the case of Newman v. Smith, 77 Fla. 667, 678, 82 So. 236, 249, the testator stated he had made a will and left everything to his wife. On being asked why he did not give something to his daughter by his former wife, he replied that "when we parted she went with her mother, and I gave her everything I had." The observation is made that, if this conversation occurred, Smith was laboring under a delusion, because the testimony disclosed that, when the latter and his first wife parted, he did not give the daughter anything, nor did she go with her mother, but was taken by an aunt when about one year old, with whom she lived until she married. Under such contrary statement of fact the court said that testator was either laboring under an insane delusion that might naturally have influenced him in making his will, or that he told a deliberate falsehood, or the alleged conversation never occurred. The court said that, if the first conclusion be accepted, testator was laboring under an insane delusion. It is a well-established rule, "abundantly sustained by the rulings of other courts of the highest respectability, that where there is an insane delusion in regard to one who is an object of the testator's bounty, which causes him to make a will which he would not have made but for that delusion, such will cannot be sustained." American Bible Soc. v. Price, 115 Ill. 623, 5 N.E. 126.

In the instant case the same rule applies. It was proven that J.P. Batson received from the Batson Grocery Company upon the dissolution approximately $40,000, and Batson's statement to the witness Levie that he never received a cent, and his other statements that he received practically nothing from that company's business, are either false, or testator made no such statements, or else when stated testator was laboring under an insane delusion as to such fact and his son's participation in that dissolution or conduct of closing of the business at testator's instance. There is no reason to believe that he would have told a falsehood about the matter, no evidence tending to show interest or falsehood by the witness, and no evidence from which an inference could be drawn that testator knowingly made such false statements, and false statements were contrary to his former business and social conduct. It follows that it was a proper question for the jury to determine (1) as to whether he made these statements, and (2) if he did so, declare whether at the time he was suffering from an insane delusion as to such business matter and his son's participation therein.

In the case of Snell v. Weldon, 243 Ill. 496, 520, 90 N.E. 1061, 1070, the cases on insane delusion are collected, and the conclusion is stated as follows: "Where a testator has some actual grounds for the belief which he has, though regarded by others as wholly insufficient, the mere misapprehension of the facts or unreasonable and extravagant conclusions drawn therefrom do not establish the existence of such a delusion as will invalidate his will. Stackhouse v. Horton, 15 N.J.Eq. 202; Martin v. Thayer, 37 W.Va. 38, 16 S.E. 489; Wait v. Westfall, 161 Ind. 648, 68 N.E. 271; Owen v. Crumbaugh, 228 Ill. 380, 81 N.E. 1044, 119 Am.St.Rep. 442 .

"The establishment of an insane delusion involves proof that the testator in this case believed certain things concerning his son which did not exist; that he had no evidence on which to base such belief; that the things which he believed were false and were adhered to by the testator after their falsity had been shown by reasonable evidence; that the things which the testator believed were such things as no person of sound mind would believe; that the testator refused to yield or give up such irrational belief in the face of such reasonable evidence as would convince an ordinarily sound and healthy mind; and, lastly, that the existence of such delusion was present in the mind of the testator and exercised a controlling influence over him at the time the will was executed."

In the Snell Case is the statement by the court that testator became careless and indifferent about his dress. Here there is testimony of the same kind. In Snell's Case the court observed:

"He would walk the

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