Gillette v. McLaughlin
| Decision Date | 31 August 1921 |
| Docket Number | 4888 |
| Citation | 44 S.D. 499,184 N.W. 277 |
| Parties | IN THE MATTER OF THE WILL OF JAMES A. GILLETTE, DECEASED. ORRIE GILLETTE, Plaintiff and respondent, v. WILLIAM J. McLAUGHLIN, Executor, Defendant and appellant. |
| Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
WILLIAM J. McLAUGHLIN, Executor, Defendant and appellant. South Dakota Supreme Court Appeal from Circuit Court, Moody County, SD Hon. Louis L. Fleeger, Judge #4888--Reversed Frederick A. Warren, Bates, Johnson & Simons Attorneys for Appellant. Rice & Rice, Brady, Robertson & Bonner Attorneys for Respondent. Opinion filed August 31, 1921; Decision modified November 22, 1921
This appeal grows out of a controversy over a will. James A. Gillette, the decedent named herein, died testate on the 18th day of July, 1918. He left surviving him as heirs at law his widow, Maggie A. Gillette; a daughter, Elizabeth; and two sons, Orrie Gillette, the plaintiff in this action, and John A. Gillette. There had been an older son, Harry, who was killed by falling from a load of hay on the 1st day of September, 1910. Decedent and Maggie Gillette were married on the 1st day of January, 189o. They lived together on a farm in Moody county from the time of their marriage until about the 1st of October, 1912, when Maggie Gillette, during the absence of decedent and without his knowledge or consent, took the children and moved into a house in Flandreau, and never after returned to the farm or lived with decedent. She remained in Flandreau about 2 years, when she took the children and moved to Minneapolis, where she has since resided. During the year 1914 she commenced an action against decedent for separate maintenance. In that action she prevailed, and judgment was entered, requiring her husband to pay her $400 a year, and so far as the record shows this judgment was complied with. Not long after Maggie Gillette left the farm decedent had a sale and disposed of the personal property on the farm, and does not appear ever to have lived upon or made his home on the farm thereafter. At the time Maggie Gillette left the farm they owned two quarter sections of land, title to one quarter of which was in decedent's name and the other in his wife's name. About the year 1916, decedent commenced an action against Maggie Gillette to have title to both quarter sections quieted in his name. That action was still pending at the time of his death, but the final result of the suit was that title to one quarter was awarded to him, or rather to his estate, and the other to his wife. At the time of his death this land was worth about $100 per acre. After decedent left his farm he worked about on different farms, also in a cream station in Flandreau, and finally had charge of a cream station at Elkton. In February, 1918, he entered the United States army. He enlisted as a single man, 34 years old, although at that time he was past 62 years of age and had a, wife and grown family. He was sent to Jefferson Barracks, but in a short time his health broke down, and he was placed in a government hospital, where for a time he was very sick. He partly recovered, but was discharged from the army because of poor health, and returned to Flandreau about the last of June, 1918.
Some time during the year 1913 decedent made the acquaintance of the defendant, William McLaughlin, and a warm friendship sprang up between McLaughlin and his wife and decedent. Decedent worked for McLaughlin at different times, and McLaughlin transacted some business for decedent. When decedent was in the neighborhood he appears to have frequently visited the McLaughlins. He appears to have been welcome and to have been made to feel at home; in fact for the, last 4 or 5 years of his lifetime the McLaughlin home came nearer to being a home for him than any other place. While he was sick in the hospital at Jefferson Barracks he telegraphed to McLaughlin to come to him. Upon receipt of this message McLaughlin and his wife both went to see him. They had a son in the government service stationed at East St. Louis, and they went to see him on the same trip; but after visiting their son they went back and visited decedent again before they returned to Flandreau. When decedent returned to Flandreau about the last day of June he went directly to the McLaughlin home, where he remained some three or four days, when he was taken to a hospital in Flandreau. From that time on he failed rapidly. On the 12th day of July he sent for a banker in Flandreau, with whom he had done business, to come and draw his will. By the terms of this will he disposed of his property as follows: To his three children he gave $100 each. To his wife he gave a one-third interest in the two quarter sections of land above mentioned, provided the court should award it all to him, but in case any part of the land was awarded to his wife, then she was to have no interest in the part awarded to him. He directed his executor to expend $500 for a monument to be placed on the family burial lot in the cemetery in Flandreau. To the Catholic Church in Flandreau he gave $100 for masses; to defendant McLaughlin, $5,000; the residue to the congregation of the Catholic Church in Flandreau; and the said McLaughlin was named as executor. Decedent was unable to leave his bed when the will was made. He continued to grow weaker until the 18th day of July, when he died in a hospital in Dell Rapids, to which place he had been taken on the 14th of July.
It is alleged in plaintiff's petition that the will is void and should be canceled, because at the time the will was executed testator was not mentally competent to make a valid will, and because the said will was made as the result of the fraud and undue influence of the said McLaughlin and one George E. Kelly, a Catholic priest in charge of the Catholic Church in Flandreau.
Numerous questions are presented by the record, but under the view we take of the case it is necessary to consider only the questions of mental competency and undue influence.
It is claimed by plaintiff that at the time of the execution of the will testator was of unsound mind, was mentally weak, and laboring under mental delusion, and that he was unable to understand the nature of the instrument he executed, or his obligations to his wife and children.
Upon the question of decedent's mental condition it is claimed and fairly proved that testator was a man with a morose disposition; that he had a vicious temper; that he was unkind and sometimes brutally cruel to his wife and children; that the loss of his oldest son in 1910 caused him great grief; and that for some time thereafter his mind seems to have been deranged. Upon the subject of his mental condition, his wife testified that:
At times he would sit "in a deep study and watched us and watched every move we made around the house, and I was terribly frightened. Sometimes he would just simply do that, and I would get up and go out of the house, and again he would fly in a rage and grab hold of anything he could, and looked like an insane man, watching you with that peculiar look. Sometimes he would go for weeks and be all right, and again he would take spells and wouldn't be all right. He seemed to be in a deep study over something. He would send the children to school with a horse that wasn't safe. It ran away a number of times, and a number of times it threw them out, and finally they quit driving the horse and walked. He wouldn't let them have anything else to drive. The horse ran away Decoration Day in 1911. It threw Elizabeth and I out and hurt us, and the man in the feed barn toad us not to hitch it up for several days, and the next day Elizabeth wanted to drive to school, and Orrie was going to hitch up for her, and he forbid him, and she didn't have time to walk. It was seven miles. He had a very unbalanced mind. He was not of sound mind.
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