Lindsey v. Lindsey

• Decision Date: 31 January 1869
• Parties: STEPHEN LINDSEY, JR., et al.v.HEZEKIAH LINDSEY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

50 Ill. 79

1869 WL 5175 (Ill.)

99 Am.Dec. 489

STEPHEN LINDSEY, JR., et al.

v.HEZEKIAH LINDSEY.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1869.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Fulton county; the Hon. CHAUNCEY L. HIGBEE, Judge, presiding.

The facts necessary to a full understanding of the issues presented in this case are stated in the opinion.

Mr. J. S. WINTER, for the appellants.

Mr. S. C. JUDD and Mr. L. W. JAMES, for the appellee.

Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

On the 27th of January, 1862, Stephen Lindsey, Sr., then eighty-seven years old, conveyed to his youngest son, Hezekiah, his farm in Fulton county, containing 270 acres, and executed to him a bill of sale for three horses, two cows, some hogs, and his farming utensils. At the same time the son executed to his father seven notes for $150 each, secured by a mortgage on the farm, and also a bond in the penal sum of $1,000, conditioned for the support of his father during his life. His father died on the 2d of September, 1864, and a part of the heirs, brothers and sisters of Hezekiah, have filed this bill to set aside said deed and bill of sale, on the ground that Stephen Lindsey, Sr., was, at the time of their execution, mentally incapable of contracting, and that he had been subjected to undue influence on the part of Hezekiah. The defendant answered, denying these allegations in the bill; and the case having been heard on the bill, answer, replication and proofs, the circuit court dismissed the bill.

The evidence is quite voluminous, and we cannot undertake to discuss it in detail. An attentive examination of it, however, has satisfied us the court did not err in this decree.

There is no proof whatever, that anything was ever said or done by Hezekiah for the purpose of influencing his father to enter into this transaction. So far as appears, he was merely an assenting party, his father having, some eighteen months before this affair occurred, executed two wills, drawn by the witness Bailey, with substantially the same purpose in view that was sought in this transaction, but finally preferring to give the matter this shape. So far as the case depends upon the exercise of improper influence, we must regard it as altogether unsustained by proof.

Was there, then, such mental imbecility on the part of the senior Lindsey as to justify a court in setting aside the deed on that ground alone? Before a complainant can claim such a decree, in the absence of undue influence, he must show such a degree of mental weakness as renders a party incapable of understanding and protecting his own interests. The circumstance that the intellectual powers have been somewhat impaired by age is not sufficient, if the contracting party still retains a full...