Goddard v. Dupree
| Decision Date | 06 January 1948 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | NORMA L. GODDARD v. BLANCHE P. DUPREE & others. |
October 10, 1947.
Present: QUA, C.
J., LUMMUS, RONAN SPALDING, & WILLIAMS, JJ.
Will, Validity. Unsound Mind.
Testamentary capacity requires ability on the part of the testator to understand and carry in mind, in a general way, the nature and situation of his property and his relations to those persons who would naturally have some claim to his remembrance; freedom from delusion which is the effect of disease or weakness and which might influence the disposition of his property; and ability at the time of execution of an alleged will to comprehend the nature of the act of making a will. Per QUA, C.J.
Upon conflicting evidence, fully reported, at the hearing by a judge of probate of a petition for proof of an alleged will of a woman eighty-three years of age who had died of a complication of diseases four days after the execution of the alleged will, a finding by the judge that she was not of sound mind when the instrument was executed was not plainly wrong, and disallowance of the instrument was affirmed.
PETITION, filed in the Probate Court for the county of Suffolk on August 14 1946, for proof of the will of Nellie E. W. Bickford, late of Boston.
The case was heard by Wilson, J.
H. C. Dunbar, (G.
E. Healey with him,) for the petitioner.
W. C. Lombard & R.
T. Hamlet, (W.
P. Lombard with them,) for the respondents.
The petitioner appeals from a decree of the Probate Court disallowing an instrument offered for probate as the will of Nellie E. W. Bickford, late of Boston. The case was fully heard on the facts by the judge of probate without having been submitted to a jury. The decree recites findings of fact that the testatrix was not of sound mind and that the execution of the will was procured by undue influence. The evidence is reported.
On the issue of mental competence, although there is a presumption of sanity the general burden of proof rested upon the petitioner. Clifford v. Taylor, 204 Mass. 358 , 361.
Panell v. Rosa, 228 Mass. 594 . Johnson v. Jenks, 253 Mass. 25 , 30. Evidence having been introduced of lack of mental competence, the crucial question for our decision is whether we can say that the finding of the lack of such competence was plainly wrong. Old Colony Trust Co. v. Yonge, 302 Mass. 49 , 50. Greene v. Cronin, 314 Mass. 336 . The question is not what finding we ourselves would have made on the same evidence. The case is one in which widely differing inferences could be drawn from the evidence, and it is not one where the drawing of inferences can be separated from the evaluation of the testimony itself. Compare Malone v. Walsh, 315 Mass. 484 , 490. Most of the evidence was given orally. The value of the testimony of the witnesses depended in great measure upon their appearance and their manner of testifying on the stand. In such a case we must give full recognition to the advantage possessed by the trial judge, who saw and heard the witnesses.
The evidence is too voluminous to be stated here in detail. After a careful examination of all of it we can do no more than to indicate in bare outline the salient portions which, if accepted by the trial judge, would, we think, justify his finding that the deceased was not competent to make a will.
The deceased was eighty-three years of age. The alleged will was executed on Tuesday, August 6, 1946. Death occurred four days later on Saturday, August 10. The death record gives the causes of death as pulmonary edema, cardiorenal disease, chronic myocarditis, and chronic nephritis. There is also a "question" of a fracture in the leg, the deceased having fallen three or four days before the alleged will was made. A physician who had treated the deceased in the spring and fall of 1945 and in July, 1946, and who visited her again the day before the alleged will was made, testified that in July he had advised her "in no uncertain terms that she certainly wasn't able to look after her affairs" and must have someone "appointed" or someone to look after her. He further testified that she was decidedly senile the year before; that on the day before the alleged will was made she was decidedly confused and did not know where she had been or what had happened to her; and that he felt she was not capable of conducting her business affairs. She dismissed this physician that day. A second physician who was then called saw the deceased the night before the alleged will was made,...
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