Buckey v. Buckey et al.
| Decision Date | 11 November 1893 |
| Parties | Buckey v. Buckey et al. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
The presumption of law is that the grantor in a deed was sane and competent to execute it at the time of its execution.
Old age is not of itself sufficient evidence of incapacity to make a deed.
The evidence of an officer taking the acknowledgment to a deed, or of a person present at its execution, is entitled to peculiar weight in considering the grantor's capacity.
The time of the execution of the deed is the material or critical point of time 1:0 be considered upon the inquiry as to the gran tor's capacity.
A grantor in a deed may be extremely old, his understanding, memory, and mind enfeebled and weakened by age, and his action occasionally strange and eccentric, and he may not be able to transact many affairs of life, yet if age has not rendered him imbecile, so that he does not know the nature and effect of the deed, this does not invalidate the deed. If he be capable, at the time, to know the nature, character, and effect of the particular act, that is sufficient to sustain it.
L. D. Strader, Leland Kittle, and John Brannon, for appellant, cited 11 W. Va. 584; 20 W. Va. 251; 20 Gratt. 147; 14 W. Va. 100-118.
Dayton & Dayton, W. L. Kee, and A. M. Poundstone for appellee, cited 36 W. Va. 563.
John J Buckey brought three suits in equity in Ran dolpli Circuit Court one against Charles N. Buckey, to annul a deed made by George Buckey to Charles N\ Buckey, and two against Alpheus, to annul two deeds made by George Buckey to Alpheus Buckey and by a decree made in the three causes beard together the deed to Charles IS.. Buckey and one of the two made to Alpheus Buckey were annulled. Charles N. Buckey appeals. John J. Buckey in brief of counsel alleges error in the failure of the decree to cancel the other deed to Alpheus Buckey and asks that in that respect the decree be reversed.
The ground of attack upon these deeds is the incapacity of George Buckey from old age to nuke them. He died in 1888, aged ninety two years. On September 10, 1883, when eighty seven years old, he made a deed to Charles Buckey conveying about twenty acres of land, on which stood a mill, Charles X. Buckey being a grandchild, only son of Emmet Buckey. On September 15, 1880, George Buckey made to his son Alpheus a deed conveying to him a parcel of land embracing his residence and tanyard. On October 30, 1888, George Buckey conveyed to this same son, Alpheus, a parcel of seven acres of land and one half of two lots in the town of Beverly. These are the deeds assailed in said suits.
As it would answer no purpose of utility for future cases in a legal point of view, I shall not detail the many pages of evidence bearing on the mere question of fact of the mental capacity of George Buckey. George Buckey followed during a long life the business of a tanner, lie was in business industrious, prudent and successful. Fie was moral and religious, bore a good character and, so far as I see, was of regular, plain, temperate habits. He was a man of decided intelligence and acquired a considerable property in real estate, though he was not wealthy. When he made these deeds, he had living four sons and four daughters and a grandson, the son of his dead son.
The evidence can not he said to conflict as to specific facts; but, in opinion as to George Buckey's mental capacity to transact business or make these deeds the numerous witnesses on the two sides widely differ. I can hardly say which on that subject might be said to have the pre- ponderance. Perhaps in number there may be more on the side of his incapacity; but there are nearly as many on the other side; and when we look at the character of the evidence, the opportunity and means of observation, the business experience and capacity of the witnesses, and their ability to judge as to the party's competency, 1 am impressed that the evidence to sustain competency is preponderating in force and weight,
This is in my mind so, and would be most decidedly so, were it not for the. evidence of Dr. George W. Yokum, a long time neighbor, family physician and intimate acquaintance of George Buckey, who is settled in opinion that he was incapable of making the deeds, because of "senile dementia intensified." But there is the son of Dr. George W. Yokum, Dr. Humboldt Yokum, a graduate of Jefferson Medical College, who from his childhood had known George Buckey, raised a dose neighbor, seeing and conversing with him very often, and in July, 1882, made a settlement of his father's accounts with Buckey, and took Buckey's note for the balance, who expresses an opinion to the contrary, He is younger and less experienced than his father, it is true, but he seems intelligent and prudent in statement. I mention these witnesses because they are physicians, the only medical witnesses.
The list of witnesses upholding George Buckey's mental capacity includes the clerks of the two courts, a former sheriff, two attorneys, one of them a notary, all close neighbors and intimate acquaintances, whose business brought them in contact with all sorts of men and rendered their opinions of special weight, and who had had through years business with Buckey. A minister of the gospel, who wras frequently at his house about the dates of the deeds and had business, social and religious conversation and intercourse with him, is also emphatic in favor of his competency. I have already said that there is very considerable opinion evidence to the contrary.
It is shown that in June, 1878, George Buckey's wife died, and it had a very depressing effect upon his mind, lie said to his son-in-law, ", I am in trouble; I don't know what to do." This is urged as a strong reason to impeach the old man's competency. I regard it as not irrelevant but by no means of decisive or telling import. The loss in old age of the partner of a long life would naturally cast dark and lowering clouds over the old man's short remnant of life and render him oftentimes, when brooding over the change, vacant and oblivious to those things of the active, business world engaging the younger, but shut out at times from him. This would be the case with any of us. It is to be expected.
He did and said eccentric things. When his wife had been laid in her coffin for burial, he would have them to lay her on her side, ami, a daughter having had the corpse changed back to its former position, he came into the room and did not seem to notice it.
He stated that he was in Washington and saw Guiteau and President Garfield, when the latter was dead, and that Guiteau wis a bad looking man. lie was not at Washington at all. This lamentable occurrence, the murder of President Garfield, possessed the mind of every person month after month during the illness of the president and the trial of his assassin. Is it.strange that it engrossed this aged man's thoughts? It is an observed fact, entirely consistent with sufficiency of intellect to execute a valid deed, that the old frequently mistake fancy for reality, thinking they remember things never really in the memory as facts, but wholly the creation of imagination.
On one occasion, standing on the new bridge over Valley river he asked where the bridge was, and was told he was on it already, and that the old bridge had been burnt, when he remarked that he might find it further down the river, and went in search of it, soon returning, seeming to have recalled his recollection. He would sometimes be found sweeping out the old stable, saving he was going to stable horses in it, though it was disused and roofless, and supplanted by a new one near by. He remembered the old, familiar bridge and stable so fixed upon his memory through years long gone. They inhered in his memory yet, and overcame his recollection of the new. It is common quite usual for the aged to remember the impressions and things of their long ago, and forget for the time, until they are specially recalled to their minds, recent occurrences.
Sometimes, though not often, this aged man would be found wandering listlessly, somewhat vacantly, about his field near the town, and through the streets of the town of Beverly. There is nothing of much significance in this. He had for years labored in this field and walked the village streets among his neighbors, and he was still following his old walks and habits. When thus walking on one occasion, when his family wished him to come in, he became petulant, seeming to resent, as old people sometimes do, any hint that he was not himself as in days gone by. On another occasion he was found cutting weeds on the opposite side of the street from his house, seeming not to know it, and, when his attention was called to it, he at once returned across the street.
He sometimes bade a colored woman living in his house good-bye, saying he was going to Frederick City, and then go to the tanyard and return. Sometimes he would tell her when it was raining to take the doors from the outhouses; that they would get wet. At times he would talk incoherently, especially in later years, after these deeds were made, and in an instance or two failed to recognize an old acquaintance, buthissight was bad, and this is common in age. When be was told who-the person was, he seemed to sharply recall him, saying, "Why, is this Arch Chenowith?"
1 have given succinctly the chief part, if not all, of the peculiar conduct of George Buckey, summoned in aid of the effort to overthrow his capacity. Strange conduct we may say it is. Eccentricity, or rather the idiosyncrasies of this particular person they are, indicating, we may admit, failing powers under the hand of years of one who had walked so far down the other side of the hill of life; but with all this there is evidence to show continued good sense, intelligent...
To continue reading
Request your trial