Molyneaux Turner v. American Security Trust Company

• Decision Date: 05 April 1909
• Docket Number: No. 101,101
• Citation: 213 U.S. 257,53 L.Ed. 788,29 S.Ct. 420
• Parties: MOLYNEAUX L. TURNER, Appt. and Plff. in Err., v. AMERICAN SECURITY & TRUST COMPANY, the Children's Hospital, and the Garfield Memorial Hospital
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

213 U.S. 257

29 S.Ct. 420

53 L.Ed. 788

MOLYNEAUX L. TURNER, Appt. and Plff. in Err.,

v AMERICAN SECURITY & TRUST COMPANY, the Children's Hospital, and the Garfield Memorial Hospital.

No. 101.

Argued March 9, 10, 1909.

Decided April 5, 1909.

Messrs. Charles F. Carusi and J. J. Darlington for appellant and plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Stanton C. Peelle and William F. Mattingly for appellees and defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Moody delivered the opinion of the court:

In this case we are asked to review, on appeal and writ of error, a judgment of the court of appeals of the District of Columbia, affirming a decree of the supreme court of the District, sitting as a probate court, which admitted to probate certain paper writings purporting to be the will and codicils thereto of Henry E. Woodbury. The decree was based upon the findings of a jury upon two issues submitted to it, namely:

'(1.) At the time of the execution of the said several paper writings propounded for probate as the last will and testament of Henry E. Woodbury, deceased, was the said Henry E. Woodbury of sound and disposing mind and capable of making a valid deed or contract?

'(2.) Was execution of said paper writings procured by the fraud or undue influence of Sallie Woodbury, Mena Stevens, or either of them, or any other person or persons?'

The jury found that the testator was of sound mind and that he was not unduly influenced. The questions brought here arose upon the trial of those issues and are stated in the bill of exceptions duly allowed. There are nineteen assignments of error, relating to the admission or exclusion of evidence, and to the instructions or refusal of instructions to the jury. There was conflicting evidence upon the issues. As no question of the sufficiency of the evidence of either party is properly here, a brief preliminary statement of facts is sufficient, and any other facts which may be needed to explain the questions of law will be stated in connection with the disposition of those questions.

According to the practice in the District in a contest of this kind, those propounding the instrument for probate are called caveatees and those opposing its probate caveators.

The testator, Henry E. Woodbury, died January 15, 1905, seventy-nine years of age. The will was executed April 11, 1902, and five codicils were executed at different times from January 5, 1903, to December 20, 1904. With slight exceptions, the will and codicils devise and bequeath the real and personal property to charities. The testator had been a physician until 1881, when an injury compelled him to cease the practice of his profession. He was childless. He had married in 1870, and in less than two years had parted from his wife, and thereafter they lived separately, though without being divorced. A sister, Sallie Woodbury, lived with him until her death, in December, 1902. After the death of the sister, Mena M. Stevens became his housekeeper and nurse. A nephew, Molyneaux L. Turner, was his heir and next of kin. His wife survived the testator, and, with the nephew, filed a caveat against the probate of the paper writings purporting to be a will and codicils.

1. The first eleven assignments of error relate to the admission or exclusion by the trial court of the testimony of lay witnesses as to their opinion for or against the mental capacity of the testator. In the view we take of these assignments of error they may be considered together, and without any statement as to the testimony of the several witnesses.

The rule governing the admission of testimony of this character which has been prescribed by this court for the courts of the United States is easy of statement and administration. Where the issue is whether a person is of sound or unsound mind, a lay witness who has had an adequate opportunity to observe the speech and other conduct of that person may, in addition to relating the significant instances of speech and conduct, testify to the opinion on the mental capacity formed at the time from such observation. Charter Oak L. Ins. Co. v. Rodel, 95 U. S. 232, 24 L. ed. 433; Connecticut Mut. L. Ins. Co. v. Lathrop, 111 U. S. 612, 28 L. ed. 536, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 533; Queenan v. Oklahoma, 190 U. S. 548, 47 L. ed. 1175, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 762. In no other way than this can the full knowledge of an unprofessional witness with regard to the issue be placed before the jury, because ordinarily it is impossible for such a witness to give an adequate description of all the appearances which to him have indicated sanity or insanity. Such testimony has been well described as a compendious mode of ascertaining the result of the actual observations of witnesses. Ordinarily, and perhaps necessarily, the witness, in testifying to his opportunities for observation and his actual observation, relates more or less fully the instances of his conversation or dealings with the person whose mental capacity is under consideration, and it is, of course, competent, wither upon direct or cross-examination, to elicit those instances in detail.

The order of the evidence must be left to the discretion of the trial judge; but, when sufficient appears to convince the trial judge that the witness has had an opportunity for adequate observation of the person's mental capacity, and has actually observed it, then the judge may permit him to testify to his opinion. This was the course pursued by the trial judge in this case. With respect to each witness whose testimony as to opinion was admitted or excluded, the judge exercised his discretion upon the qualifying testimony.

We are asked to review that discretion, and to say that, in the case of the eleven witnesses before us, it was improperly exercised. We have no hesitation in declining to do this. No general rule can well be framed which will govern all cases, and an attempt to do that would multiply exceptions and new trials. The responsibility for the exercise of the judicial power of determining whether a given witness has the qualifications which will permit him, to the profit of the jury, to state his opinion upon an issue of this kind, may best be left with the judge presiding at the trial, who has a comprehensive view of the issue and of all of the evidence, and the witness himself before his face.

This is not to say that, in a very clear case, an appellate court ought not to review the discretion of the trial judge. For instance, if it should appear that the witness had never spoken to the testator or seen any significant act, but merely observed him driving from day to day through the streets, and the opinion of such a witness as to sanity had been received, it would be the duty of the appellate court to correct the error. On the other hand, if the witness for years had been in constant communication with the testator, had frequently conversed with him and observed his conduct from day to day, the exclusion of the opinion of the witness ought to be corrected by the appellate court. These are instances of a plain abuse of judicial discretion.

The true rule of action for an appellate court is stated in Wheeler v. United States, 159 U. S. 523, 40 L. ed. 244, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 93. In that case this court was considering the admissibility, upon the trial of an indictment for murder, of the testimony of a boy five and a half years old at the time of the trial. The court, speaking by Mr. Justice Brewer, said (p. 524):

'The decision of this question rests primarily with the trial judge, who sees the proposed witness, notices his manner, his apparent possession or lack of intellignece, and may resort to any examination which will tend to disclose his capacity and intellignce as well as his understanding of the obligations of an oath. As many of these matters cannot be photographed into the record, the decision of the trial judge will not be disturbed on review unless, from that which is preserved, it is clear that it was erroneous.'

Though the question of competency in that ease differed materially from the questions of competency in this case, the spirit which underlies the statement of the court there ought to govern here.

We have examined these eleven assignments of error and brought them to the test of the foregoing principles. We find that no admissions or exclusions of testimony were clearly erroneous, and accordingly all the assignments are overruled.

2. The caveators, on the issue of unsoundness of mind of the testator in 1902 and the following years, offered in evidence the record in a suit for divorce brought by the testator in 1872, and more especially that part of the record wherein he alleged, as a cause for divorce, that his wife was incapable of a valid marriage on account of a physical malformation. The physicians appointed by the court reported, after an examination of the wife, that the condition alleged did not exist. The offer of this evidence was accompanied by the contention that it showed a delusion on...