In re Heaton's Will

• Decision Date: 28 May 1918
• Citation: 224 N.Y. 22,120 N.E. 83
• Parties: In re HEATON'S WILL.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

224 N.Y. 22

120 N.E. 83

In re HEATON'S WILL.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 28, 1918.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.

In the matter of the probate of the will of Jeannie Hamilton Heaton, deceased. Contest in which Jacob Howard Cropley was proponent and Charles Albert Heaton and another were contestants. From an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department. (179 App. Div. 885,165 N. Y. Supp. 1090), affirming a decree of the Surrogate's Court of New York County rendered upon a jury verdict denying probate, the proponent appeals. Order and decree reversed and proceeding remitted.Arnold L. Davis, of New York City, for appellant.

James W. Prendergast, of New York City, for respondents.

COLLIN, J.

The only question meriting discussion presented by this appeal is, Is there any evidence supporting the finding that the deceased was not of sound mind when she executed the paper propounded as her last will and testament? The paper was executed December 11, 1914. It gave to each of a niece and an aunt the sum of $1, with the statement:

‘I make no other or further disposition for their benefit because of their cold and indifferent attitude toward me.’

It gave to her husband, Charles Albert Heaton, to whom she was married in 1897, the sum of $100, with the statement:

‘I make no other or further disposition for his benefit for the reason that he is already well provided for.’

There followed the provision:

‘I give, devise and bequeath all the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, both real and personal, and of every kind and nature whatsoever, and whether now possessed by me or which I may hereafter be entitled to receive, whether by will or otherwise, to my best and truest friend, Jacob Howard Cropley,’ who was named as executor.

The deceased left no descendant. Cropley, named as executor, is the proponent for the probate of the paper, and the niece and the husband are the contestants.

The deceased died June 12, 1915. The immediate cause of her death was chronic alcoholism. The contributing causes were arteriosclerosis, cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy. Her age was 38 years. The two witnesses of the execution of the paper gave the proof which entitled it to probate. The contestants did not introduce direct evidence that the deceased was, when executing the paper, under the influence of intoxicating liquors or any delusion. They sought to sustain by evidence a finding that she at that time was suffering from fixed and general alcoholic dementia, accompanied by delusions which affected the disposition of her property. They proved that prior to December, 1912, she had been and thereafter until a few weeks before her death was an immoderate and inordinate drinker of intoxicating liquors of various kinds. Throughout such period, excepting, however, a few months at its beginning while she was taking and under the effect of treatment for alcoholism, she was habitually drunk. As a rule, the exceptions to which were rare and brief, she was attended and accompanied by a maid or nurse. In July, 1914, Cropley, the proponent here, became and continued to be until her death, except through a few weeks in the early autumn of 1914, her secretary and adviser. Her husband, who lived at a sanitarium, paid her each month as her personal allowance $375. From May, 1914, to July 5, 1914, she lived in a hotel or in hotels at South Norwalk, Conn., to be near her husband, who was there in a sanitarium. Through July and the first part of August, 1914, she, her husband, and Cropley lived at hotels in New York City. The three weeks next following, she, accompanied by Cropley, and not by a maid or nurse, lived at a hotel in the Catskills. The deceased and Cropley returned from the Catskills to a hotel in New York. Soon they and a maid for Mrs. Heaton went to and remained through a week or ten days at a hotel at White Plains. Through the 14 months intervening the return to New York and her death, she lived in hotels or boarding houses in that city, except in the months of February and March, 1915, she with a nurse and Cropley were at a hotel at Jacksonville, Fla. A physician, who visited the deceased professionally in December, 1912, testified:

‘I found Mrs. Heaton mentally upset and excited; her speech was blurred; her conversation was disjointed, and she was unable to carry on a connected conversation. She had delusions about herself and about her husband; especially delusions relating to every man being in love with her and of that sexual type. Physically, she was rather stout. Her face was bloated; her eyes were bloodshot; her speech was thick. She had a very large cirrhotic liver. She had a poor, degenerated heart, and her circulation was not in good equilibrium. * * * She was of unsound mentality. She was full of delusions; she was unsound. She had alcoholic dementia. Her mind was demented. * * * She was unsound because her daily existence was influenced by a lot of sexual delusions, and those delusions are too intimately connected with her everyday life not to influence her entire life. She would not carry on any line of conversation connectedly. She would jump off on this and that so that her mind was without control. It was the unsound mind. She would answer sensibly whether it was a pleasant day or not. You cannot say every idea was unsound. * * * I found delusions about her husband and delusions about herself. Generally describing them, they related to the sexual topic. She was demented; it was incurable. Dementia is incurable.’

Under his direction, she entered and remained at a hospital through the period of ten days or two weeks, taking there the belladonna treatment for alcoholism.

‘The result was that she had no physical desire for her alcohol after she got through; she was much less nervous. She could talk accurately as far as enunciations were concerned. She still retained these delusions. She still had hard work to carry on a conversation with any continuity of thought.’

He talked with her in March of February, 1913, and testified:

‘She would not talk connectedly with you; I could not get her to talk. I tried to get her to talk. I tried to get her to talk to see how she was doing, but she evaded the issue every time. I could not get any connected conversation with her. She told me that she had gone back to taking alcohol.’

A physician testified that in May, 1914, the deceased's skin was white and pasty; she had protruding eyes and dilating pupils. In walking she shuffled and bent forward, and in her dress she was slovenly. A physician, who visited her professionally August 12, 1914, while in the Catskills, testified that she was intoxicated; that when he tried to see her features she would struggle against it, was agitated, and not...