Claffey v. Fenelon

• Citation: 263 Mass. 427,161 N.E. 616
• Parties: CLAFFEY et al. v. FENELON.
• Decision Date: 28 May 1928
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

263 Mass. 427

161 N.E. 616

CLAFFEY et al.

v.FENELON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

May 28, 1928.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Middlesex County; Franklin T. Hammond, Judge.

Application by Rosanna Claffey and another for the probate of the last will and testament of Patrick C. Fenelon, deceased, contested by Catherine A. Fenelon. On petitioners' exceptions to the verdict of the jury. Exceptions overruled.P. J. Donaghue and F. T. Conley, both of Boston, for petitioners.

M. G. R. Halloran, of Boston, for respondent.

RUGG, C. J.

This case was tried to a jury in the superior court on the issue, ‘Was Patrick C. Fenelon of sound mind at the time of the execution of the instrument which is propounded as his last will?’ This is the issue as answered by the jury and as framed by the probate court. A slightly different and less accurate issue recited in the opening paragraph of the bill of exceptions is controlled by other parts of the record. This issue was correct in form and in substance. It was in accordance with long established practice in the courts as declared in Fuller v. Sylvia, 240 Mass. 49, 54, 133 N. E. 384, where the customary forms of issues in will cases are set forth. It conformed to the standard of testamentary capacity fixed by G. L. c. 191, § 1. McLoughlin v. Sheehan, 250 Mass. 132, 137, 145 N. E. 259. Nothing that was said in Taylor v. Creeley, 257 Mass. 21, 29, 152 N. E. 3, was intended to be at variance with this settled usage or to suggest any variation from the issues in use before 1919 ‘in accordance with the practice established by the Supreme Judicial Court.’ St. 1919, c. 274, § 7, now G. L. c. 215, § 16.

The instrument offered for probate as the last will and testament of the decedent was executed in March, 1918. He died in December, 1922. By the terms of that instrument the wife, son, and daughter of the decedent were not given anything. Most of his estate was distributed among more or less remote collateral kindred.

The request of the proponents of the will that the jury be directed to answer the question in the affirmative was denied rightly. The burden of proof was upon the proponents of the will to satisfy the jury by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the deceased was of sound mind at the time of the execution of the instrument. In this class of cases, as in the great majority of cases where the burden of proof depends upon the weight to be given to oral testimony, it rarely can be ruled as matter of law that that burden has been sustained. Lockhart v. Ferguson, 243 Mass. 226, 228, 137 N. E. 355;McDonough v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 228 Mass. 450, 452, 453, 117 N. E. 836, and cases there collected; Gold v. Spector, 247 Mass. 110, 141 N. E. 665. Although there are instances where the facts, in the light of the presumption of sanity, do not raise a disputed question of fact and the court can and ought to rule as matter of law (Johnson v. Jenks, 253 Mass. 25, 147 N. E. 844;Johnson v. Talbot, 255 Mass. 155, 158, 150 N. E. 900;Taylor v. Creeley, 257 Mass. 21, 152 N. E. 3), nevertheless these are exceptional and do not affect the general rule.

There was testimony from experts on mental diseases who had examined the decedent during his life on several occasions. On their testimony a finding would have been warranted to the effect that the deceased was so obsessed with certain ideas and had carried them to such excess that they became delusions; that he was suffering from ‘a paranoid condition’; that he harbored many illusions as to his family, as to the hospital where he was under restraint for a time, and as to the physicians in charge of him; that he was insane; and that the form of insanity from which he suffered was incurable. There was much testimony as to his delusions respecting his wife and family, which need not be narrated. The observations of these experts concerning the decedent ceased between two and three years prior to the execution of the alleged will; but, upon their testimony as to the incurable nature of the mental disorder with which he was afflicted, the inference would be justified that he continued to be in the same or no better mental condition until after the date when the instrument was signed. Requests for instructions numbered 2 to 7, inclusive, to the effect that there was no evidence of his insanity during several specified years, were denied rightly. If this testimony was believed by the jury, a finding would have been warranted that, notwithstanding the presumption of the sanity of the deceased, his mind was not of normal capacity but was tainted by morbid and unnatural defects of a character and magnitude to disable him from appreciating his obligations to his immediate family, and that he was not capable of understanding the relation in which he stood to the natural objects of his bounty and to those who ought to be in his mind, and that he was not free from delusion, which was the effect of disease and which would lead him to dispose of his property otherwise than he would have done if he had had a right appreciation of what he was doing. If findings of this general nature were made, the question put in the issue as framed rightly ought to have been answered in the negative. Whitney v. Twombly, 136 Mass. 145, 147;Becker v. Becker, 238 Mass. 362, 366, 130 N. E. 843;Smith v. Brewster, 247 Mass. 395, 399, 142 N. E. 56;McLoughlin v. Sheehan, 250 Mass. 132, 138, 145 N. E. 259. There was much evidence introduced by the proponents tending to show that the testator was of sound mind. That was not conclusive. Soundness of mind was a question of fact to be determined by the jury upon conflicting testimony. Lockhart v. Ferguson, 243 Mass. 226, 137 N. E. 355;Flynn v. Cunningham, 244 Mass. 306, 138 N. E. 392.

It appeared from probate records that a guardian was appointed for the decedent on January 5, 1915, on the petition of his wife, daughter and son, on the ground that he was an insane person; that the guardian resigned on May 25, 1916; that on December 4, 1916, this resignation was accepted by the court and it was decreed that the guardian be discharged because the decedent had become and was then competent to manage his estate and the guardianship was no longer necessary; that at the hearing on this petition the wife of the decedent alone was represented by counsel; that an appeal from that decree taken by his wife was dismissed on January 25, 1917; and that on January 18, 1918, a decree was entered that the decedent was living apart from his wife for justifiable cause by reason of her desertion. See Fenelon v. Fenelon, 244 Mass. 14, 138 N. E. 334. These proceedings were introduced in evidence without objection. The jury were instructed without exception that these matters might be considered as bearing upon the relations between the decedent and his family. The request for instruction that the decree discharging the guardian was ‘conclusive adjudication’ that the decedent was of sound mind at that time was refused rightly. It related to a fragmentary portion of evidence, with which the judge could not be required to deal specifically. Ayers v. Ratshesky, 213 Mass. 589, 593, 101 N. E. 78. Full instructions were given as to the presumption of sanity and as to what constituted unsoundness of mind. Such a decree is conclusive only as to acts which are required to be done by a guardian and cannot be done by a ward. Talbot v. Chamberlain, 149 Mass. 57, 59, 20 N. E. 305,3 L. R. A. 254. It is conceivable that one under guardianship as an insane person may still have sufficient mental capacity to make a will, and, conversely, one whose guardian has been discharged may not have sufficient capacity to make a will. Stone v. Damon, 12 Mass. 488;Breed v. Pratt, 18 Pick. 115;May v. Bradless, 127 Mass. 414; Chandler Will Case, 102 Me. 72, 101, 66 A. 215. There is nothing inconsistent with this conclusion in Miller v. Miller, 150 Mass. 111, 22 N. E. 765,Willwerth v. Leonard, 156 Mass. 277, 31 N. E. 299, and Chase v. Chase, 216 Mass. 394, 103 N. E. 857, upon which the proponents rely.

There was no error in the refusal to give the twenty-first requests of the proponents as to the effect of the presumption of sanity. An...