Israel v. Jackson
| Decision Date | 05 March 1884 |
| Docket Number | 9860 |
| Citation | 93 Ind. 543 |
| Parties | Israel v. Jackson et al |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Marion Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.
J. H Ewick, F. J. Matter, H. W. Harrington and A. B. Young, for appellant.
E. F Ritter, L. Ritter, E. T. Johnson, R. N. Lamb and S. M Shepard, for appellees.
Fannie Israel, the plaintiff below and the appellant here, was the second wife of one Willis Barnett, now deceased, to whom she was married on the 14th day of September, 1864. At the time of the marriage Barnett had four children by his first wife, three of whom, to wit, Huldah J., since intermarried with Henry C. Jackson, John F. Barnett and James A. Barnett, still survive, and are the appellees in this appeal. The appellant and Barnett, the decedent, continued to live together as husband and wife for more than nine years. In February, 1874, a separation having taken place, Barnett filed his complaint for a divorce in the superior court of Marion county, charging the appellant with cruel treatment and abandonment. The appellant appeared by her attorney to that action, and upon a hearing a divorce was decreed, and by agreement of parties the sum of $ 1,300 was adjudged to the appellant for alimony. In August, 1874, which was after the divorce was decreed, Barnett executed his last will and testament, devising and bequeathing his entire estate to his two sons, but charging it with the payment of a sum of money to his daughter, Mrs. Jackson.
In September or October, 1877, the appellant and Barnett, from whom she had been divorced, were remarried, but before the marriage ceremony took place she and the said Barnett mutually executed what purported to be an antenuptial agreement in writing, by which she, for the alleged consideration of $ 100, agreed to release and waive all claims to the property which the said Barnett then owned, or which he might thereafter acquire.
Sometime in January, 1878, Barnett died, leaving the will executed by him as above unrevoked, and an estate consisting mostly of real estate, and without issue by his intermarriage with the appellant. This will was soon afterwards presented for probate, when Mrs. Jackson and her husband filed objections to its validity as the will of the decedent. A compromise soon followed, in which it was agreed, amongst other things, that a part of the real estate left by the decedent was to be conveyed to Mrs. Jackson. Accordingly the entire family, including the appellant, met, on the 6th day of February, 1878, at the office of one of the attorneys employed in the settlement of the estate, and the two sons of the decedent thereupon conveyed to Mrs. Jackson a part of the real estate devised to them by the will, and Mrs. Jackson and her husband in turn executed a conveyance to the sons, relinquishing all claim to the remainder of the real estate so devised to them. The appellant joined in the execution of both of these conveyances, seemingly without any consideration moving to her, and apparently for the purpose of merely relinquishing all claims she might be supposed to have to the property conveyed. In connection with, however, and as may have been understood to have been a part of, the compromise, the two sons of the decedent either assumed to pay or assured the payment of certain sums of money to the appellant, amounting, in the aggregate, to at least thirteen, or may be as much as fourteen hundred dollars, being mostly, if not entirely, the proceeds of the alimony decreed to her in the divorce case, which were either in the hands or under the control of the decedent at the time of his death.
The appellant, having in the mean time intermarried with one Israel, commenced this suit against the appellees, charging that there was no real cause for a divorce at the time the divorce was granted to the decedent as above set forth; that she was induced to waive any effective defence to the divorce proceedings by assurances that the decedent would soon remarry her, and that a temporary separation was best for their mutual interests; that when she signed the antenuptial agreement before their remarriage, it was only read to her in part, and was signed by her upon representations made by the decedent that the paper was a merely formal thing, and did not amount to anything of any importance; that she, at the time, had no information and no conception as to the real nature of the so-called antenuptial agreement, and that she was only actuated to sign it by reason of the great and undue influence which the decedent had then, as he had long before had, over her; also charging that after the death of the decedent, she, the appellant, had no opportunity of consulting counsel or of obtaining legal advice as to her interests in his estate; that she was induced to join in the deeds of partition and compromise, after the decedent's death, by the false and fraudulent representations of the appellees that she had no interest in the decedent's estate, and by reason of the undue influence which the appellees had acquired over her by kindness to her in her then helpless condition; that she was illiterate, being unable to either read or write, and unaccustomed to transacting business of importance; that as a consequence she had no adequate comprehension of the nature and legal effect of what she was doing when she signed the alleged antenuptial agreement, as well as when she joined in the deeds of partition and compromise. Wherefore the appellant demanded that the antenuptial agreement be cancelled; that the deeds of partition and compromise, so far as they purported to convey her interest in the real estate, be set aside; that partition of the real estate might be made, and all other proper relief.
The appellees...
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