Bowman v. Bowman
| Decision Date | 16 September 1949 |
| Docket Number | 16731. |
| Citation | 55 S.E.2d 298,205 Ga. 796 |
| Parties | BOWMAN v. BOWMAN. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. While grounds of a motion for a new trial, complaining of the admission or rejection of evidence, the charge of the court and other similar matters, must be complete and understandable within themselves, so as not to require this court to refer to other portions of the record in order to ascertain what evidence was rejected or admitted, the grounds of objection thereto, the charge complained of, and why and wherein such charge was erroneous--an assignment of error in a motion for a new trial, complaining of the direction of a verdict upon the ground that under the pleadings and the evidence there were issues of fact which should have been submitted to the jury, and that the evidence adduced upon the trial would have authorized the jury to find a different verdict from that directed, is sufficiently definite and complete to require this court to examine the brief of evidence to determine the merits of such an assignment, and it is not incumbent on the complaining party to set out in such ground of the motion the evidence adduced upon the trial.
2. Where a will is attacked as having been obtained by undue influence, since such influence can seldom be shown except by circumstantial evidence, the attack may be supported by a wide range of evidence, such as a confidential relationship between the parties; the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the disposition of the testator's estate; diseases affecting the strength of mind of the testator; his dealings and associations with the beneficiary; his habits, motives feelings; his strength or weakness of character; his family social, and business relations; his mental and physical condition at the time the will was made; his manner and conduct; or any other proved fact or circumstance going to show the exercise of undue influence on the mind and will of the testator. On such an issue there may be taken into account the peculiar facts and circumstances surrounding the issue, and acts, conduct, and circumstances may constitute undue influence when exercised on a person of failing mind, poor health, and other mental and bodily enfeeblements, which would not be such undue influence as to affect the will executed by a person of sound mind, good health, and intelligence.
3. Under the general rules of evidence, every presumption is in favor of the probate of a will after it is shown that the testator was of sound mind and disposing memory at the time the will was executed, but, where, as in this case, a testator has no child, and by his will excludes his wife and devises his entire estate to strangers, under the provisions of the Code, § 113-106, 'the will should be closely scrutinized, and, upon the slightest evidence of aberration of intellect, or collusion or fraud, or any undue influence or unfair dealing, probate should be refused.'
4. Either undue influence or monomania, or the two acting conjointly, or either one as ancillary or contributing to the active power of the other, may paralyze testamentary capacity, and the existence and operation of both are usually questions of fact for the solution of a jury. 'Forces so subtle, so multiform, so variant in each case in which they may be disclosed, and in which the proof of their existence is so often dependent upon circumstances, present questions in which the court should properly leave any doubts which may arise from the evidence to the solution of the doctors of doubt, the jury." Shephens v. Bonner, 174 Ga. 128(2), 162 S.E. 383.
5. Partial insanity or monomania exists wherever a person conceives something to exist which has no existence whatever, and is incapable of being permanently reasoned out of that conception.
6. While the evidence in this case, taken as a whole, did not demand a verdict in favor of the caveatrix on the grounds of undue influence and monomania, it was sufficient to raise an issue which the jury should have been permitted to determine, and the court erred in directing a verdict for the propounder.
On June 8, 1948, Fred E. Bowman filed in the Court of Ordinary, Fulton County, Georgia, an application to probate in solemn form the will of Frank K. Bowman, alleging that Frank K. Bowman died on May 28, 1948, leaving as his sole heir at law his wife, Joanne W. Bowman, who resided at a given address in Pensacola, Florida; and the usual citation for service on the heir at law was duly issued.
The will offered for probate was dated November 1, 1946, and devised to Fred E. Bowman, who was also named therein as executor, all of the property of Frank K. Bowman.
Item 3 of the will was as follows:
Joanne W. Bowman filed a caveat to the will, which, as amended, was based upon three grounds: (1) That the will was invalid because the testator did not have sufficient mental capacity at the time of its execution to make a valid will; (2) that the testator was at the time of the execution of the will incapable of exercising his free will and judgment, and that the will did not represent his own wishes, but those of his brother, Fred E. Bowman; and (3) that the testator, at the time of the execution of the will, was suffering from monomania or insane delusions toward the caveatrix, both the second and third grounds of the caveat alleging substantially the facts disclosed by the evidence adduced upon the trial, the material portions of which will be set out hereinafter.
The will was admitted to probate by the Court of Ordinary, and the caveatrix entered her appeal to the Superior Court of Fulton County, wherein she filed an amendment admitting a prima facie case in the propounder, and admitting the execution of the will and that the testator was at the time apparently of sound mind and testamentary capacity.
The case came on for trial on March 11, 1949, and a summary of the material portions of the evidence is as follows: The caveatrix testified that her relations with the testator had been perfect until he suffered a stroke of apoplexy in February, 1946, of which she knew nothing until March 8, 1946. She testified that when she learned he was ill, she came immediately to Atlanta and went to his house, but was refused admission by Fred Bowman until after she had consulted an attorney, and that her husband at that time could not talk except for saying one word at a time, repeating the same. She testified that she looked after and waited upon him for about a week; that he was bodily removed from his own home to his brother Fred's home about a week after she got to Atlanta; and that she tried to see him there, and while the brother, Fred, admitted her, another brother tried to fight her, and she then left and returned to Pensacola, instructing them that when Frank was better, to send him to her or she would come and get him; that Frank returned to Pensacola alone, late at night, about a week after she returned, and was able to say only one word, 'empty, empty, empty'; and that he could not talk at all. She further testified that he was forced to be in bed when he first came, and that the doctor advised him to stay in bed, but his condition improved and he was later able to do small chores around the house; that, while she was away teaching school, she hired a woman to care for him; that he had medical care while he was in Pensacola, for which she paid; that his brother Fred worried him, wanting to bring him back to Atlanta; that after these visits by Fred, he would 'slump' back; that when Frank left, he told her that he was coming to Atlanta for treatment, that he was only coming up to the doctors; that she later came for Frank at his request to take him back to Pensacola, but Fred refused to allow her to take him; that Frank accused her of poisoning him and that she never had tried to poison him; and that they had had no disagreements to amount to anything until his illness. She further testified that, when she asked Frank about the divorce, he repeated insistently, 'Not me, not me, not me'; and that, when she asked him later why he had refused her letters, he repeated the same words.
Dr Fenwick T. Nichols Jr. testified that he was a doctor at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, and that he had treated Frank Bowman in May of 1948, which was the same month in which Bowman died. He testified: that at that time Frank was suffering from heart failure, and was not of sound mind; that he, Nichols, was unable to rely on the history of the patient because it was rembling and disjointed, and that, in his opinion, the patient at that time was demented; that Frank could not keep anyone with him to help him because he was paranoid and quarrelsome, that is, he had a false belief that someone did not like him or was trying to outsmart him; that he exhibited this paranoia in that he felt that people his brother had gotten to live with him were trying to poison him with the medicines they were giving him, and that he also manifested the same complaint about his wife; that his manner of talking at that time was quite disjointed and unintelligible; that he would start a sentence and end up talking about something else; that he could not say from his observation how long Frank had been mentally off; that he could have had it several years, and could have had the heart disability for a number of years and been in as bad a...
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