Langley v. Langley

• Decision Date: 06 January 1931
• Citation: 153 A. 9
• Parties: LANGLEY et al. v. LANGLEY et al.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

153 A. 9

LANGLEY et al.

v. LANGLEY et al.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Strafford.

Jan. 6, 1931.

Transferred from Superior Court, Strafford County; Young, Judge.

Action by Edward L. Langley and another against Charles A. Langley and others. Case transferred from trial court on plaintiffs' exception to order sustaining defendants' demurrer.

Exception overruled.

Action at law, for conspiracy. The plaintiffs allege "that the defendants Charles S. Langley, Ada C. Lundholm, and Francis J. McDonald, did conspire together to cheat and defraud the plaintiffs out of their just share in the estate of Jeremiah Langley, the father of the plaintiffs and of the defendant, Charles S. Langley." The acts charged comprise duress and undue influence exerted by the defendants upon Jeremiah Langley, causing him to convey certain real estate to two of the defendants, and to execute a will in which the defendant Langley was named executor.

The plaintiffs further allege that the purpose of the will was "to cut off" their interests; that Jeremiah Langley died on January 10, 1921, and that in March of that year the will was allowed by the probate court; that the defendants Langley and McDonald caused a false inventory to be returned, and that the defendant Langley, as executor, with the intent to conceal from the plaintiffs the fact that the will had been allowed, failed to give the notice required by P. L. c. 298, § 15.

Transferred by Young, J., on exception to the order sustaining the defendants' demurrer.

Frank J. Spofford, of Haverhill, Mass., Ernest L. Guptill, of Portsmouth, and Batchelder & Wheeler, of Exeter, for plaintiffs.

Mathews & Varney, of Somersworth, for defendants.

MARBLE, J.

"Great confusion would follow if, after proof of a will, license to sell in the probate court, assignment to children, and partition, among the devisees, of the residue, it was still competent for any one who might be dissatisfied, to try an issue devisavit vel non in a suit at common law." Town of Poplin v. Town of Hawke, 8 N. H. 124, 127.

A decree admitting a will to probate determines conclusively that such will was not induced by fraud or undue influence. Glover v. Baker, 76 N. H. 393, 401, 83 A. 916. And the issue thus adjudicated is not removed from the operation of the rule of res adjudicata by "an allegation that several conspired to unduly influence" the testator. Teckenbrock v. McLaughlin, 246 Mo. 711, 721, 152 S. W. 38. "There is no such thing in this state as a civil action based upon conspiracy alone. Stevens v. Rowe, 59 N. H. 578, 47 Am. Rep. 231. The ground for recovery is found in the acts done, not in the plans made." Fitzhugh v. Railway, 80 N. H. 185, 189, 115 A. 803, 805.

The decree of a probate court is in the nature of a proceeding in rem (Starkey v. Kingsley, 69 N. H. 293, 294, 39 A. 1017), and like a common-law judgment cannot be impeached collaterally except for lack of jurisdiction (Scammon v. Pearson, 79 N. H. 213, 107 A. 605; Stearns v. Wright, 51 N. H. 600, 609, and cases cited...