McReynolds v. Smith
| Decision Date | 26 January 1909 |
| Docket Number | 21,131 |
| Citation | 86 N.E. 1009,172 Ind. 336 |
| Parties | McReynolds et al. v. Smith et al |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied May 25, 1909.
From Howard Circuit Court; J. F. Elliott, Judge.
Suit by Alzora N. Smith and others against William H. McReynolds and others. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
Stanley W. Menell and Kirkpatrick & Morrison, for appellants.
Bell & Purdum, John E. Moore and Blacklidge, Wolf & Barnes, for appellees.
Appellees being daughters of George W. Defenbaugh, brought this suit to prevent the probate of what purported to be the will, and codicil thereto, of their father. The defendants Elizabeth Defenbaugh and Wilbur M. Defenbaugh are the widow and minor son of the testator. The defendants McReynolds, Richmond, the General Convention of the New Church in the United States, and S. S. Seward, president of said last-named defendant, are trustees and beneficiaries under said will. The complaint alleges unsoundness of mind and undue influence. It is alleged that the decedent was of unsound mind on the subject of the Swedenborgian religion, and that, when he executed said pretended will, he was guided therein by what he imagined to be a peculiar revelation, and that said will was the direct result of a delusion and imaginary revelation, and undue influence. The widow and minor son made default. The widow renounced the will, and elected to take her rights under the law. Richmond died. McReynolds, the General Convention of the New Church in the United States, and S. S. Seward each filed a separate answer of general denial. The jury returned a general verdict for the plaintiffs, together with answers to interrogatories submitted by the court. The answering defendants moved for judgment in their favor on the answers to interrogatories. The motion was overruled. The answers to the interrogatories, that related to the decedent's testamentary capacity at the time the pretended will was executed, disclose the following facts: The testator, at the time said purported will was written by McReynolds and examined and criticized by one Pollard, and also when he signed said will and said codicil, to wit, May 12, 1891, and January 5, 1901, did not have mind and memory sufficient to know and understand the contents thereof; and he did not, when the will and the codicil were executed, have mind and memory sufficient to understand the ordinary business affairs of life, nor have a general knowledge of the value and extent of his estate; and he did not, when he executed the will, have mind and memory sufficient to know and understand the business in which he was engaged, the extent of his estate, and the persons who were his wife and children, nor could he keep these things in his mind long enough to have his will prepared and executed. In the light of these facts it is so plain that the court rightly overruled appellants' motion for judgment that we deem it presumptuous to cite authorities in support of the ruling.
The motion of appellants for a new trial was overruled. As the reason for a new trial it is insisted that the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence. The case of Wait v. Westfall (1904), 161 Ind. 648, 68 N.E. 271, is not an authority in this case relating to the burden of proof. In the former case, before the will was attacked, the probate court, upon competent and satisfactory proof, had admitted the same to probate; that is, it had adjudged the will valid, which included a finding that the testator was of sound mind, and the instrument duly executed. Such case was an action to set aside the judgment of probate, because erroneous, and the party assailing the validity of the judgment clearly had the burden of proving what she asserted. The reverse is true in this case. The appellants tendered the probate court a pretended will that gave them valuable rights in derogation of the statutes of descent. Those legally entitled under the statute met appellants at the threshold, and challenged the validity of the instrument before any judicial action had been taken upon it. In such a case it is alike clear that a traverse of such instrument by those prejudiced thereby would impose upon the proponents the burden of maintaining its integrity. Steinkuehler v. Wempner (1907), 169 Ind. 154, 15 L. R. A. (N. S.) 673, 81 N.E. 482, and cases cited. In determining the sufficiency of the evidence it is only necessary that we review the evidence produced that tends to support the verdict. Contrary evidence may as well be disregarded, since, where legal evidence appears on both sides, and in conflict, we have no authority to disturb the decision of the jury upon its weight and importance. Robinson & Co. v. Hathaway (1898), 150 Ind. 679, 50 N.E. 883; Oglebay v. Tippecanoe Loan, etc., Co. (1908), 41 Ind.App. 481, 82 N.E. 494.
There was much direct and positive evidence submitted to the jury in support of the following facts: George W Defenbaugh was born in 1839, married at the age of twenty-two, and had been a resident of Kokomo for about forty years. He was always highly respected for his virtues, and for his moral, upright life. At the time of his marriage both he and his wife were active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but twenty or twenty-five years before his death, which occurred in 1906, he was attracted to the religious doctrines taught by Emanuel Swedenborg. He soon became deeply interested in the new doctrine, and so enthusiastic and earnest in its dissemination that he devoted much of his time and means to its advocacy and in the distribution of tracts and other writings of Swedenborg. His zeal continued to intensify, until Swedenborgian dogmas so completely dominated his mind and thoughts as to intrude themselves into all his business and social relations. There was much unanimity among the witnesses that for eighteen or twenty years before his death it had seemed impossible for him to engage in conversation on any subject without an intermingling of the tenets and teaching of Swedenborg, and that many business transactions with him had failed on account of his persistence in the presentation of his belief. A number of witnesses estimated that four-fifths of all his conversations, including business contracts, were so occupied. He would accost persons in the street, strangers as well as acquaintances, young and old, and those of high and lowly station, and as long as he could get a hearing, would urge upon them the acceptance of his views. He would also call upon his own skilled employes--those receiving $ 2.50 per day--in working hours, and request them to suspend their work and give him a hearing, and thus detain them from their work two or three hours at a time. The same course of conduct was pursued in the stores and business offices of the city. So, in his own home, with the younger members of his family, whom, when they sought to avoid him, he would follow about the house, upstairs and downstairs, and into the yard, with his entreaties. and give them sums of money to read certain tracts and books. It was the same way with the family visitors; and when expostulated with by his wife for becoming tiresome to their guests, he would express, and seem to feel, regret, but in a few moments would lapse into the same deportment, his fervent insistence on all occasions being that the "Word" (meaning the Bible) was spiritually revealed to man by Swedenborg's writings, and could not be understood in any other way than by and through such writings; and that all who did not read the same, and thus enter into the spiritual meaning of the Bible, were ignorant of its truths. He often spoke about the teachings of Swedenborg's being the key that would alone unlock the Bible. He claimed that he could, and did, communicate with the departed; also that he had power to visit the planets, and did visit them, and had acquaintances on Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. He said he often went to Mars, and would give a particular description of its inhabitants, and its canals and mountains. He claimed that it had been revealed to him that Saturn was to be his future home, and he would run a stone-quarry there. He said he had been all through heaven and hell, and knew what was going on in the respective places. He asserted that he had visions and revelations. He abandoned the putting down of a gas-well on his property, because, in a vision, he was informed there was no gas under the land. He was the owner and operator of a stone-quarry adjacent to the city of Kokomo, worth about $ 12,000. He believed that its value was very much greater, and often asserted its value to be one, or more, million dollars, and that it might be operated at a profit of $ 100 per day. He made and delivered to his son a statement of the possibilities of the quarry, as follows: ...
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