Haghart v. Cooley
| Decision Date | 02 September 1965 |
| Docket Number | 8 Div. 197 |
| Citation | 278 Ala. 354,178 So.2d 226 |
| Parties | Willis HAGHART v. Charlie COOLEY et al. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Howell T. Heflin and Chas. D. Rosser, Tuscumbia, Raymond Murphy, Florence, for appellant.
Jesse A. Keller and Robt. M. Hill, Jr., Florence, for appellees.
This is a will contest. From a judgment in favor of contestants, proponent appeals.
The testator in this case, Jimmy Cooley, was a midget whose height was approximately 40 inches, and who was in his midtwenties when he died. The proponent, Willis Haghart, has been in show business for over forty years. He was reared in Cullman. Jimmy was reared in Lauderdale County. Jimmy had a bone disease when he was about six years old, but went to school for some ten years at Rhodesville School in Lauderdale County.
When Jimmy was around sixteen or seventeen, Mr. Haghart went to see his parents about using Jimmy in his show. Jimmy did not go with Haghart at the time but two years later his mother and father wrote to Haghart to come and get him. In March of 1954 or 1955, Haghart went for him. During the next few years the two of them worked the circus, the arrangement being that Mr. Haghart would 'work the front', advertising Jimmy as the 'world's smallest man', and take up the money. Jimmy would stay inside and give lectures. Jimmy had complete charge of the show and Mr. Haghart had charge of the front.
During the first few years Jimmy and Mr. Haghart spent the winter months with Jimmy's parents in Waterloo. Later, Mr. Haghart bought a trailer which they lived in during the winter months.
In the winter of 1959-60, Mr. Haghart and Jimmy lived in Cullman, parking their trailer next to a Mr. Hayes' service station. While there Jimmy took his meals at a cafe owned by a Mr. Segler. While in Cullman Mr. Haghart talked to Jimmy about making a will. They went together to a Notary Public selected by Mr. Haghart, who drew up wills for the two of them. They made reciprocal wills, Haghart leaving everything to Jimmy and Jimmy leaving everything to Haghart. Each will contained an alternative disposition to a school for handicapped children.
About two years after the wills were executed Mr. Haghart and Jimmy bought a farm for approximately $6,000. Mr. Haghart contended that he paid the entire amount. Title was taken in their joint names. Other than a small amount of money in the bank, the one-half interest in this farm is the only property which Jimmy had at his death in 1964.
Following Jimmy's death, Mr. Haghart offered his will for probate. Jimmy's parents contested on grounds of undue influence and lack of testamentary capacity. The jury returned a verdict for contestants; Mr. Haghart appeals.
Most assignments of error concern the trial court's allowing witnesses for the contestants to testify as to Jimmy's mental capacity when it was shown that these witnesses based their opinions on acquaintance with Jimmy while he attended public school in Rhodesville. These witnesses were for the most part school teachers who had taught Jimmy over the years.
Mrs. Mamie Bevis testified that she had been a school teacher for 28 years and had taught all grades of grammar school; that she had had Jimmy in her classes. Mrs. Bevis testified that she was not able to teach Jimmy like other children; that Jimmy did not have the ability to retain school work; that he was unable to do first grade work when he was in the fifth grade, that he had been given 'social promotions' which she explained was a promotion given because of a child's age and not for his ability to do school work. Jimmy was 16 years old when he was in the fifth grade. His teacher testified that he could make out some words in his reading and could print a little but could not stay on the lines. He could add a little but could not subtract, divide or multiply. This witness was of the opinion that Jimmy was definitely mentally retarded. He scored well below average on an achievement test administered to him by this witness. She further testified that Jimmy was easy to manage and easily persuaded. She felt that she could persuade him to do anything. She said that he was loved by all of the other children and was very fond of his parents.
Mr. Floyd Parker testified that he was at the time of trial the principal of Forrest Hills School in Florence. He knew Jimmy while he was principal of Rhodesville School and had taught Jimmy while there; that he had had an intimate relationship with him and that Jimmy was never able to do first grade work and that because he was unable to do school work he gave him little jobs around the school to do. This witness testified that Jimmy was greatly subject to the power of suggestion and would do just about anything anyone asked him to do.
Many other witnesses testified but we can see no reason to set out further testimony. As noted, appellant here objects to this whole line of testimony on the ground that only the mental condition of the testator at the time the will was executed is relevant. It is true, of course, that:
'Sanity being the normal condition of the human mind, the law presumes that every person of full age has sufficient mental capacity to make a will, and casts on the contestant, in that first instance, the burden of proving mental incapacity at the time the will was executed * * *.'
It is equally true, however, that:
'* * * when the contestant has established habitual, fixed or permanent insanity, as distinguished from spasmodic or temporary insanity at a time prior to making the will, the burden of going forward with the evidence is then shifted to the proponents, and they are required to show that the will was executed during a lucid interval.' Tucker v. Tucker, 248 Ala. 602, 28 So.2d 637, citing O'Donnell v. Rodiger, 76 Ala. 222, 52 Am.Rep. 322; McBride v. Sullivan, 155 Ala. 166, 45 So. 902; Houston v. Grigsby, 217 Ala. 506, 116 So. 686.
We are firmly convinced that there was no error in the trial court's allowing this testimony. This testator is shown to have been retarded from an early age, both physically and mentally. It would be adopting an unrealistic view to hold that these factors have no bearing on his mental condition at the time the will in question was executed. In Price v. Marshall, 255 Ala. 447, 52 So.2d 149, the...
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Seibold v. State
...form a judgment, the facts on which such judgment is based must be stated. Jones v. Jones, 275 Ala. 678, 158 So.2d 481; Haghart v. Cooley, 278 Ala. 354, 178 So.2d 226. If viewed as calling merely for a statement of fact, i.e., her answer to the defendant's question at the time of the conver......
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...unless plainly erroneous. Wear v. Wear, 200 Ala. 345, 76 So. 111; Price v. Marshall, 255 Ala. 447, 52 So.2d 149; Haghart v. Cooley, 278 Ala. 354, 178 So.2d 266. We hold that as to those assignments relating to the court's rulings relative to the competency of the lay witnesses to express an......
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