Crawfordsville Trust Co. v. Ramsey

• Citation: 55 Ind.App. 40,100 N.E. 1049
• Decision Date: 20 February 1913
• Docket Number: No. 7,922.,7,922.
• Parties: CRAWFORDSVILLE TRUST CO. v. RAMSEY.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

55 Ind.App. 40

100 N.E. 1049

CRAWFORDSVILLE TRUST CO.

v.RAMSEY.

No. 7,922.¹

Appellate Court of Indiana, Division No. 1.

Feb. 20, 1913.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Clinton County; Jos. Combe, Judge.

Action by Ice H. Ramsey against the Crawfordsville Trust Company, as executor of the estate of Alexander F. Ramsey. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.Guenther & Clark, of Frankfort, Crane & McCabe, of Crawfordsville, and Finley P. Mount, of Indianapolis, for appellant. Thomas & Foley, of Crawfordsville, Samuel M. Ralston, of Lebanon, Harry C. Sheridan, of Frankfort, and Kennedy & Kennedy, of Crawfordsville, for appellee.

HOTTEL, J.

This action is based upon a complaint of five paragraphs covering about 60 printed pages. Answers and replies correspondingly long and a special finding of facts with conclusions of law, extending over 64 printed pages, were also filed in the case. This, with a record containing over 4,000 pages of evidence, and numerous separate assignments of error by many appellants, makes it extremely difficult to present, in an opinion of reasonable length, a statement of the issues, the findings, and the evidence that will intelligently present the several questions to be determined. However, this labor has been materially lessened by a recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Crawfordsville Trust Company v. Ramsey, 98 N. E. 177, which, for the reasons hereinafter indicated has eliminated one branch of the case and a number of questions incident thereto.

There is no dispute between the parties as to certain general facts, upon which said several pleadings are based, and which are found by the finding and shown by the evidence. These facts are necessary to an understanding of the questions with which this opinion will have to deal, and we now set them out.

Alexander F. Ramsey, for many years a resident of the city of Crawfordsville, Montgomery county, Ind., died testate at Hot Springs, Ark., on March 11, 1907, leaving surviving him, a widow, Ice H. Ramsey, the appellee, a son, Charles P. Ramsey, and a daughter, Hepsey B. Yount, as his only heirs. The deceased was twice married before his marriage to appellee. The first and second marriages were each dissolved. He married appellee January 13, 1883. The son and daughter were children by his second wife.

At the time of his death, deceased had accumulated a considerable fortune, and during his life had made three wills. The first will was made June 11, 1894, the second, August 25, 1906, and the last, February 5, 1907. In each of these wills the deceased provided for a fund to be known as the “A. F. Ramsey Relief Fund for the Poor of Crawfordsville, Indiana.” For the purposes of the questions to be determined in this opinion the provisions of said several wills may be treated as being the same in each will, except that in the last will the deceased added to said poor fund 40 “one thousand dollar bonds” of the “Indianapolis, Crawfordsville & Western Traction Company,” which were of the value of $24,000, together with all the stock which he held in said company which was of no value, and instead of devising said stocks and bonds to the Board of Commissioners of said county alone as trustee, as in his former wills, he devised such stocks and bonds to such Board of Commissioners and their successors in office, and to the Crawfordsville Trust Company of Crawfordsville, Ind., jointly as trustees. At the time of the making of the second will, the deceased signed and acknowledged a quitclaim deed, conveying to his wife two pieces of business property in the city of Crawfordsville, of the probable value of $15,000, and the annual income from which was $1,680. This deed was not delivered to the wife until in January or February, 1907. Each of the wills devised the real estate known as the home place to appellee for life, and at her death to go to the daughter, Hepsey B. Yount. Certain other real estate was devised to her for life, and at her death to the trustees of said poor fund.

The deceased organized the Citizens' National Bank of Crawfordsville, Ind., in 1883, and was elected its president, and held such position until his death. In the year 1889 he organized the Crawfordsville Trust Company, became one of its stockholders and directors, was elected its president, and sustained such relations to said trust company until his death, and made the office of such company his principal place of business. Walter F. Hulet was the secretary of such trust company during a great part of this period. About the year 1905 Ramsey, with others, organized the “Indianapolis, Crawfordsville & Western Traction Company,” known as the “Ben Hur Line,” for the purpose of building an interurban road from Crawfordsville to Indianapolis, and at the time of such organization became a stockholder and director, and was elected and remained its president until his death. After making his last will said Ramsey obtained information that the trust fund therein created could be diminished by his widow electing to take under the law instead of taking under the will, and he then, on February 21, 1907, prepared, signed, and delivered to Mr. Hulet an instrument of assignment, assigning to the same trustees the same stocks and bonds which he had in his will given to such trustees, and at the same time prepared, signed, and delivered another instrument of assignment assigning other and additional shares of bank stock. These deeds of assignment referred to the provisions of the will as furnishing the purpose for which the trust was created, and providing the manner of its management and control. On the 9th day of March, 1907, two days before the death of Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Hulet was in Hot Springs, Ark., and at that time the deceased signed and delivered to him another deed of assignment, for the same stocks and bonds before assigned. Said assignments of said stocks and bonds, and each of them, were without any consideration.

On the 20th day of March, 1907, the appellee executed an election in writing to take under the will of her deceased husband, and on the 22d day of March, 1907, caused it to be filed in the office of the clerk of the Montgomery circuit court and recorded in the will record of said court. Hepsey B. Yount, as a consideration for the filing of said election, conveyed to appellee by quitclaim deed the real estate in Crawfordsville known as the home place, in which appellee had been given a life estate by the will of her deceased husband. Said deed contained the following provisions, viz.: “And the said grantee by accepting this deed waives all her rights in and to the estate, both real and personal, of which the said Alexander F. Ramsey died seised, wherever situate, excepting only those rights and interests saved and secured unto her by the terms of said will, and which said will was probated in the Montgomery circuit court on the 16th day of March, 1907. Provided always, that this conveyance is upon the express condition that the will of Alexander F. Ramsey, deceased, shall not be set aside, broken and held for naught at any time by the judgment of any court, then this deed shall in all respects be void.” On the 25th day of March, 1907, appellee by an instrument in writing, duly signed and acknowledged, revoked her election to take under the will, and elected to take as the widow of her deceased husband, and therein accepted the provisions made for her by the statute and law of descent of the state as such widow, which instrument was filed by her on said day with the clerk of said court, and was by such clerk recorded in the will records of said county, and appellee on said day caused to be served on said trust company, trustee, notice in writing of her intention to rescind and revoke her said election made on the 20th day of March, and that she had filed her election to take under the law, and on said day signed, acknowledged, and tendered to Hepsey B. Yount a quitclaim deed for said home place, being the same real estate before mentioned herein as being conveyed by said Hepsey B. Yount to appellee.

In January, 1906, deceased was taken ill, was threatened with pneumonia, and was under the care of a physician, and in the latter part of February an examination of his urine disclosed that he was suffering from acute Bright's disease. On the 28th of August, 1906, the deceased, accompanied by his wife and family physician, went to Mountain Valley Springs, Ark., to recuperate his health. He arrived at said Springs September 1st, and remained until December 20, 1906, when he returned to his home in Crawfordsville. His illness grew worse, and on February 26, 1907, he, in company with his wife and a colored servant, went to Hot Springs, Ark., to get the benefit of the waters of that city, and there died on March 9, 1907. The deceased, on each of the occasions when he made the assignments of the stocks and bonds above referred to, and for some time prior thereto, knew the character of his illness, knew that it was fatal, and that he had but a short time to live.

After this suit was filed, Hepsey B. Yount died, leaving a husband and three minor children. Said trust company was appointed administrator of her estate, and guardian of her minor children, and as such it, with the husband of said Hepsey B. Yount, was substituted as defendants.

As the question of the sufficiency of the several pleadings is not presented, we need only indicate their general scope and tenor.

The first paragraph of the complaint sets out the will of the deceased, the appellee's election to take thereunder, her after-revocation, and asked to have her election set aside, and that she be permitted to take under the law. The paragraph proceeds upon the theory that the appellee, at the time she made her election, was suffering from nervous strain, worry, and grief, resulting from the recent illness and death of her husband, and on account thereof was not in a frame of...