Medical College of Va., Medical Division v. Maynard

• Decision Date: 19 November 1952
• Docket Number: No. 453,453
• Citation: 73 S.E.2d 315,236 N.C. 506
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA, MEDICAL DIVISON, v. MAYNARD.

Page 315

73 S.E.2d 315

236 N.C. 506

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA, MEDICAL DIVISON, v. MAYNARD.

No. 453

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 19, 1952

F. T. Dupree, Jr., and William Joslin, Raleigh, for plaintiff appellee.

Sam J. Morris and Harris, Poe & Cheshire, Raleigh, for defendant appellant.

WINBORNE, Justice.

Exception to the judgment, and to the entry of it, assigned as error on this appeal, presents for decision the question: Do the facts found by the judge below support the judgment? Culbreth v. Britt Corp., 231 N.C. 76, 56 S.E.2d 15, and cases there cited. See also Duke v. Campbell, 233 N.C. 262, 63 S.E.2d 555, and In re Hall's Guardianship, 235 N.C. 697, 71 S.E.2d 140, and cases cited.

This question raises a further and basic question as to whether or not a person who has been declared 'incompetent from want of understanding to manage his own affairs', and for whom a guardian has been appointed pursuant to the provisions of G S. § 35-2, formerly C.S. 2285, is conclusively presumed to lack mental capacity to manage his own affairs.

In this connection, and pertinent thereto, this Court in Sutton v. Sutton, 222 N.C. 274, 22 S.E.2d 553, 555, had this to say: 'Where a person has been adjudged incompetent from want of understanding to manage his affairs, by reason of physical and mental weakness on account of old age, disease or like infirmities, and the Court has appointed a guardian * * * the ward is conclusively presumed to lack mental capacity to manage his affairs, insofar as parties and privies to the guardianship proceedings are concerned; and, while not conclusive as to others, it is presumptive proof of the mental incapacity of the ward, and this presumption continues unless rebutted in a proper proceedings', citing Johnson v. Pilot Life Ins. Co., 217 N.C. 139, 7 S.E.2d 475, 476, 128 A.L.R. 1375, and other cases. And the Court there held that, in any event, in the absence of proof to the contrary, a person for whom a guardian has been appointed pursuant to the provisions of Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina, Vol. 3, sec. 2285, as amended by Public Laws 1929, Chap. 203, is presumed to lack mental capacity to make or revoke a will.

Johnson v. Pilot Life Ins. Co., supra, is a case in which the defendant was contending that the order in the lunacy proceeding in which plaintiff was pronounced sane and restored to the management of his affairs, is res judicata of his sanity and bars plaintiff from asserting a condition of insanity contrary to that finding. Speaking thereto, in opinion by Seawell, J., it is said: 'The mental capacity of the plaintiff was a fact, capable of proof as any other fact, regardless of the finding of the jury in the lunacy proceeding or the order of court following upon it. Certainly if a person is adjudged sane in a lunacy proceeding, he is no more conclusively so than he might be under natural conditions before the law became concerned with the inquiry, and an adjudication of such a court, when presentde in a matter not connected with the immediate purpose and scope of the proceeding, when admissible at all, is no more than...