In re Estate of Lochmiller

• Citation: 202 N.W. 75,199 Iowa 358
• Decision Date: 10 February 1925
• Docket Number: 36206
• Parties: IN RE ESTATE OF CAROLINA LOCHMILLER. v. CLEMENTINA RANSOM, Appellee GUS LOCHMILLER et al., Appellants,
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

202 N.W. 75

199 Iowa 358

IN RE ESTATE OF CAROLINA LOCHMILLER.

GUS LOCHMILLER et al., Appellants, v. CLEMENTINA RANSOM, Appellee

No. 36206

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

February 10, 1925

Appeal from Crawford District Court.--E. G. ALBERT, Judge.

CONTEST over the admission to probate of an instrument purporting to be the last will and testament of one Carolina Lochmiller deceased, upon objections filed by Gus Lochmiller, G. F Lochmiller, Rudolph Lochmiller, and Mrs. Antonia Johnson children of the testatrix. Upon the conclusion of the evidence, a verdict was directed in favor of the proponent and judgment was entered taxing costs to the contestants, who appeal.

Affirmed.

Sims, Kuehnle & Page, for appellants.

W. E. Kahler and Earling Garrison, for appellee.

DE GRAFF, J. FAVILLE, C. J., and STEVENS and VERMILION, JJ., concur.

OPINION

DE GRAFF, J.

The issues, as tendered by the objections filed, were: (1) Want of testamentary capacity; (2) unsoundness of mind; (3) improper execution; and (4) undue influence of the daughter, Clementina Ransom, the proponent, and the members of her family. By an amendment to the objections, the contestants conceded the due execution of the will. The objection thereafter urged was that of undue influence, although it does not appear that the issue of unsoundness of mind was waived.

Upon the motion of the proponent at the conclusion of the testimony, the court directed a verdict in her favor, on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to take the case to the jury on the issues of either the mental incapacity of the testatrix to make a will, or undue influence. The correctness of this ruling is the basis of this appeal.

Taken in its most favorable aspect for contestants, their own evidence fails to establish facts from which mental incapacity may reasonably be inferred. Testatrix was a woman of advanced years, and totally blind during the latter part of her life. There was also testimony given by defendants tending to show that the deceased had suffered from bowel trouble for some years before her death. These facts have little or no probative value in establishing unsoundness of mind. The incidents in the testimony of contestants are not unusual in the conduct of a person who, having become blind, was quite helpless during the later years of life.

Did the court err in taking from the jury the issue of undue influence? The argument of appellants is confined chiefly to this alleged error. Having admitted the due execution of the will, the burden of proof was upon them to establish undue influence; and unless a verdict for the contestants on this issue could have been properly sustained by the trial court, the ruling below must be affirmed. The fact that executrix and beneficiary lived together, or that a filial relation existed between them, does not, in the absence of other evidence, relieve contestants of the burden. In re Will of Boyle, 186 Iowa 216, 172 N.W. 280; Graham v. Courtright, 180 Iowa 394, 161 N.W. 774; Pirkl v. Ellenberger, 179 Iowa 1122, 162 N.W. 791. In the Pirkl case, supra, the court pointed out the distinction between transactions inter vivos and testamentary dispositions. It is said:

"Where one sustaining fiduciary relations to another secures from the other a gift or donation, or a contract greatly to the disadvantage of the giver, inter vivos, the law raises a presumption that the gift would not have been made, or the contract entered into, through the free and voluntary volition of the giver. This presumption calls upon the beneficiary to purge himself at least from a suspicion of improper influence in bringing about the gift. * * * In contemplation of death, however, the transaction wears a very different aspect. The property must be parted...