Martin v. Baldwin
| Decision Date | 11 September 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 20543,20543 |
| Parties | Mary Miller MARTIN, Caveatrix, v. Ernest BALDWIN, Jr., Executor. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The complete file of the Veterans' Administration consisting of numerous documents, where offered as a whole, was properly excluded from evidence, since certain of the documents in the form of letters from doctors as to the condition of the testator many years before the execution of his will--which have no relevancy to the question at issue and which are not a memorandum or record of any act, transaction, occurrence, or event made in the regular course of business of the Veterans' Administration--were inadmissible.
2. (a) Documents from the Veterans' Administration file on the testator were not admissible in evidence as having been submitted by the testator to the Veterans' Administration, where the evidence failed to show that they had been sent in by him or at his instance.
(b) Letters purporting to be signed by named persons as doctors found in the file kept by the Veterans' Administration on the testator, a veteran, were not a memorandum or record of any act, transaction, occurrence, or event made in the regular course of business by the Veterans' Administration within contemplation of Code (Ann.) § 38-711.
(c) Records of a Veterans' Administration hospital and a Veterans' Administration office, made in the regular course of the business of the hospital or office, which contain opinion evidence, conclusions, impressions, matter of conjecture, diagnoses of physicians or other parties, are not admissible in evidence under Code (Ann.) § 38-711, since they are not the contemporaneous records of events, acts, transactions, or occurrences as required by the act, but are opinions or conclusions which may or may not be based upon facts, and lack that reliability of records which exists in the routine recording of facts in regular business books or other records.
(d) Photostatic copies of an Army discharge and Army clinical records, produced from a Veterans' Administration file, are not admissible in evidence under Code (Ann.) § 38-711 as records made in the regular course of business of the Veterans' Administration, as they are obviously records of the War Department or the Defense Department, but are not offered as such with necessary proof that they are records of that department made in the regular course of its business.
3. The court properly excluded from evidence an incorrect, typed copy of microfilms which were in evidence.
4. A record or writing is not admissible under Code (Ann.) § 38-711 without the testimony of a witness whose evidence shows that the writing or record offered is a memorandum or record of an act, transaction, occurrence or event made in the regular course of the business, and that it was the regular course of the business to make such memorandum or record at the time of such act, transaction, occurrence, or event, or within a reasonable time thereafter.
5. The trial court was authorized to conclude that the evidence did not contain sufficient facts of mental incapacity of the testator to justify the opinion of the witness that he was insane, and there was no error in excluding from the evidence such conclusions.
6. The trial court properly directed a verdict in favor of the propounder and the will, there being no evidence to support the contention of the caveatrix that the testator at the time of the execution of the will was not of sound mind, was suffering from monomania, which resulted in the execution of the will, and that the will was executed under a mistake of fact and as a result of undue influence of Ernest Baldwin, Jr., upon the testator.
The will of Dr. James J. Martin, who died August 30, 1958, was offered for probate in the Court of Ordinary of Randolph County, Georgia, by Ernest Baldwin, Jr., who was nemed executor in the will. Mrs. Mary Miller Martin, the wife and sole heir at law of Dr. Martin, filed a caveat to the petition. The court of ordinary rendered a judgment in favor of the probate of the will, from which judgment the caveatrix filed an appeal to the superior court. Upon the trial of the case in the superior court and at the close of the evidence, the trial judge directed a verdict in favor of the propounder and the will. The exception is to the judgment of the superior court denying the motion of the caveatrix for a new trial.
The grounds of the caveat, as amended, were that, at the time of the execution of the will, the testator was not of sound mind, was suffering from monomania, which resulted in the execution of the will, and that the will was executed under a mistake of fact and as a result of undue influence of Ernest Baldwin, Jr., upon the testator. At the trial the caveatrix admitted a prima facie case and assumed the burden of proof. The errors complained of are the exclusion of certain documentary evidence and the direction of a verdict in favor of the propounder of the will.
Lippitt & Lippitt, Albany, for plaintiff in error.
W. L. Ferguson, Dawson, Joe M. Ray, Jesse G. Bowles, Cuthbert, for defendant in error.
1. The caveatrix offered in evidence the complete file of Dr. James J. Martin with the Veterans' Administration, which was identified by an employee of the Veterans' Administration as the file containing all original records of this veteran with the Veterans' Administration. These documents consume eighty pages of the record in this case, and contain an application for disability compensation filed by Dr. Martin with the Veterans' Administration on May 27, 1927; Veterans' Administration hospital records; letters addressed 'to whom it may concern,' giving information about certain physical aspects of Dr. Martin over a number of years, signed by named persons with the letters following their signatures; reports of rating boards of the Veterans' Administration; reviews on appeal of these reports; and various other material. This file was offered as a whole, was objected to and was properly excluded by the court, as many of the documents were inadmissible. Sufficient to demonstrate the inadmissibility of this evidence is the following letter dated July 20, 1927, at Atlanta, Georgia, and addressed 'To whom it may concern,' and stating over the signature of H. C. Crawford, M. D., the following: In a similar letter dated July 19, 1927, Dr. M. T. Harrison stated that he had treated Dr. Martin for influenza on July 24 and 25, 1926. Clearly, this evidence is of no probative value in determining whether Dr. Martin at the time he executed his will on February 27, 1958, was insane, suffering from monomania or acting under the undue influence of Ernest Baldwin, Jr. Furthermore, there is no evidence that these statements were furnished the Veterans' Administration by Dr. Martin or at his request, nor were they a 'memorandum or record of any act, transaction, occurrence, or event' made in the regular course of business by the Veterans' Administration within the meaning of the act approved February 15, 1952 (Ga.L.1952, pp. 177, 178; Code Ann., § 38-711), under which act the plaintiff in error contends that this evidence is admissible. Various other items contained in the file were not admissible in evidence for reasons hereafter stated.
2. (a) After the exclusion of the Veterans' Administration file in its entireby, each individual document from that file was then offered in evidence. The claim for disability compensation, which was signed by Dr. Martin, was admitted without objection, and certain travel orders were admitted, as was a letter from Dr. Longino, which indicated that it was sent in at the request of Dr. Martin. All others were excluded.
The contention that the excluded documents were admissible because submitted to the Veterans' Administration by Dr. Martin in support of his claim for disability compensation is without merit, since there is no evidence that Dr. Martin submitted them, since the file does not indicate how they got there, and since the witness who produced them for the Veterans' Administration did not know who submitted them.
(b) A number of letters from persons signing as medical doctors, such as those described supra from Dr. Crawford and Dr. Harrison, which were in the Veterans' Administration file, with no evidence as to how they came to be in the file, were not admissible under Code (Ann.) § 37-711, as they are not a 'memorandum or record of any act, transaction, occurrence or event,' made in the regular course of business by the Veterans' Administration. If it could be said to be a memorandum or record of any act, etc., made by the writer of the letter, it would not be admissible, for there is no testimony that it was such and made in the regular course of business by him. Some of the letters were otherwise objectionable for reasons set forth in the following division.
(c) Another class of testimony excluded included original records of the Veterans' Administration hospital and of the Veterans' Administration office made in the regular course of business of the hospital or Veterans' Administration office handling the veterans' claims for compensation. Each of these records excluded contained either opinion evidence, conclusions, impressions, matters of conjecture, or diagnoses of physicians or other parties. The question presented is whether such evidence is admissible under Code (Ann.) § 38-711, which provides: 'Any writing or record, whether in the form of an entry in a book or otherwise, made as a memorandum or record of any act, transaction, occurrence or event shall be admissible in evidence in proof of said act, transaction, occurrence or event, if the...
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