Carroll v. House

• Decision Date: 21 May 1891
• Citation: 48 N.J.E. 269,22 A. 191
• Parties: CARROLL v. HOUSE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

22 A. 191

48 N.J.E. 269

CARROLL

v. HOUSE.

Prerogative Court of New Jersey.

May 21, 1891.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

William B. Guild, for appellant.

Charles Borcherling, for respondent.

VAN FLEET, Vice-Ordinary. This is an appeal from a decree of the orphans court of the county of Essex, refusing probate to a paper purporting to he the will of Patrick Monaghan, deceased. The reason assigned in tine decree for refusing to admit the paper to probate is that it had not been published by the decedent as his will in the manner required by the statute concerning wills. I cannot concur in that view, but for another reason I think the decree is clearly right, and should be affirmed. The proofs show very clearly, as I think, that the paper is the product of undue influence. The decedent signed the paper in question on the 26th day of December, 1889, when he and those about him believed he was in the grasp of death, and could live but a very short time. He was very sick, and so extremely weak as to be unable to write his name. He signed the paper by making his mark. He was a Roman Catholic, and had, shortly prior to the day on which he signed the paper, been prepared for death according to the rites of that church. He did not, however, die until the 16th day of January following. He was a widower, and for more than a year prior to his sickness had lived alone in a single room. Up until a few months before he was taken sick he had, for many years, drank to excess, but then stopped suddenly, and afterwards abstained rigidly. His only child, a daughter, died less than two years before he did. She died in childbed. The caveator is her daughter and the granddaughter of the decedent, and his heir at law nearest in blood. The paper in question disinherits the decedent's grandchild, and gives all his property to his sister, the appellant. She is his sole beneficiary. This sister and her husband had exclusive charge of the decedent from the commencement of his sickness up to the time of his death. Besides his grandchild and this sister the decedent had a brother and nephew residing near him in this state and other relatives in Ireland. He was a native of Ireland. He had a strong affection for his grandchild. This he manifested by both act and speech. During the last year of his life he said, many times, that she should have all of his property that was left after his debts were paid. He did not want to make a will. Both his sister, and the priest having the care of his soul, tried unsuccessfully, prior to the day on which the paper in question was signed, to persuade him to make a will. The priest says that the decedent was a very peculiar man, and did not wish to make a will, notwithstanding he had advised him, as it was his duty to do as his priest, that he ought to make a will. He says the first time he spoke to him about making a will the decedent did not think he was dying, and for that reason said he would defer making it until some future time. His sister swears that she never attempted to persuade the decedent to make a will, but her testimony on this point is, in my judgment, completely swept away by the other evidence in the case. There is evidence going to show that she urged him so persistently to make a will that he denounced her efforts as torture. Besides, it must be remembered that he was completely in her power. His condition was one of utter helplessness. He could do nothing for himself. He was dependent on her for everything. No comfort came to him except from her hands. She occupied a position, therefore, where she could dominate his mind and will with little danger of detection; where she could even constrain him to stifle the love he felt for his little grandchild, and make just such a will as she says he did make. Against a beneficiary thus having a testator under his control, with power to make his will the will of the testator, especially in a case where the testator has made an unnatural and unjust disposition of his property, the law wisely presumes undue influence, and puts upon the beneficiary the burden of showing affirmatively that when the testator made his will he did not exercise his power over the testator to his own ad vantage, and to the disadvantage of others having an equal or superior claim...