Collins v. Long

• Decision Date: 27 January 1920
• Citation: 186 P. 1038,95 Or. 63
• Parties: COLLINS ET AL. v. LONG ET AL.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

186 P. 1038

95 Or. 63

COLLINS ET AL. v. LONG ET AL.

Supreme Court of Oregon

January 27, 1920

Appeal from Circuit Court, Linn County; George G. Bingham, Judge.

Petition by Laura A. Collins and others against Ada L. Long and others to set aside the will of Samuel G. Collins, deceased. From a decree sustaining the will, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

This is a proceeding instituted to set aside the last will and testament of Samuel G. Collins, deceased, upon the grounds that at the time of its execution the maker was, by reason of his mental condition, incompetent to make a will. The petition of the plaintiffs is long, and contains recitals of many evidentiary facts, which, so far as they are of importance here, are sufficiently referred to in the opinion. The defendants answered the petition, and a trial was had in the county court of Linn county, resulting in a decree setting aside the will. Upon an appeal to the circuit court this decree was reversed, and one entered in favor of the defendants, from which decree this appeal is taken.

N.M. Newport, of Lebanon, for appellants.

H. H Hewitt, of Albany, for respondents.

BENSON J.

There are two questions now presented for our consideration. The first is: Was Samuel G. Collins, on June 9, 1916, mentally competent to make a will? The second is: Was such will the result of undue influence, exerted upon the testator by the defendants Ada L. Long and her husband, John H. Long?

The history involved in the investigation of the case, as gleaned from the pleadings and the testimony, is about as follows:

Samuel G. Collins, who was 94 years of age at the time of the execution of the document tendered for probate as his last will and testament, had been married twice; his first wife having died after bearing two children, who still survive being the defendants Ada L. Long and John R. Collins. Subsequently he married the plaintiff Laura A. Collins, who survives as his widow, by whom he had six children, who survive, and are plaintiffs here, together with five grandchildren, who are the offspring of a deceased daughter. Both marriages occurred in Iowa. The family moved to Oregon in 1875, where the deceased purchased the farm which constitutes practically all of the estate involved in this litigation. It appears that on April 25, 1877, the defendant Ada L. Long, who was then, according to her own testimony, 15 years of age, and according to her stepmother, 17, was for some reason which the record does not undertake to explain driven from home, penniless, and forbidden to return, and thereafter the mention of her name in the household was taboo. Thereafter, according to evidence offered by the plaintiffs, strangers within the next 2 or 3 years wrote to the girl's father, urging him either to take her back into the home or to provide for her support, but he refused to do either. In some fashion she managed to survive and support herself, and finally was married to the defendant John H. Long, with whom she is still living at their home in Bellingham, Wash. On a visit to California with her husband, she visited her father at his farm, arriving there on his ninetieth birthday, and was cordially received during a visit of a few days. In 1913 proceedings were begun in the county court of Linn county for the appointment of a guardian for Samuel G. Collins, upon the ground that he was suffering from senile dementia and was in danger of wasting his property; and John R. Collins was appointed such guardian.

Thereafter Mrs. Long made another visit to her father, finding him at the home of the guardian, at Independence, in Polk county, During this visit, the old man filed a petition in the county court of Linn county to be relieved from the control of a guardian, insisting that he was fully competent to look after himself and his property. After a hearing, his petition was denied. Immediately thereafter he undertook to convey to his daughter, Mrs. Long, the north half of his farm, and the deed so executed was duly recorded by her, and, with the consent of the guardian and the county court, she took her father with her to her home in Bellingham. The guardian commenced a suit in the circuit court of Linn county to set aside the conveyance to Mrs. Long, and a decree was made and entered in accordance with the prayer of the complaint. Mrs. Long and her father returned from Bellingham to contest this suit, and after its conclusion again went to the home in Bellingham, where the old man remained until his death, which occurred on December 9, 1916. On June 9, 1916, the old man employed John R. Crites, an attorney practicing law in Bellingham, to write his last will and testament, which was done, and this instrument, properly executed and witnessed, is the one now contested. By its terms, the north half of the farm in Linn county is devised to the daughter, Ada L. Long, and in the south half is granted a life estate to the testator's widow, with remainder over to the other sons and daughters and the children of the deceased daughter, in equal shares.

The evidence by which the plaintiffs seek to establish the testator's incompetency consists, in the first place, of the decree of the county court, adjudging the testator to be an incompetent person and appointing a guardian of his person and estate. Counsel for plaintiffs urges that such decree not having been appealed from, is res adjudicata and conclusive. This contention is fully answered by the opinion in Re Sturtevant's Estate, 178 P. 192, 180 P. 595, in which it is held that--

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