Parsons v. Parsons

• Citation: 66 Iowa 754,24 N.W. 564
• Parties: PARSONS AND OTHERS v. PARSONS AND OTHERS.
• Decision Date: 24 September 1885
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

66 Iowa 754

24 N.W. 564

PARSONS AND OTHERS

v.PARSONS AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed September 24, 1885.

On rehearing.

ADAMS, J.

We have examined this case in the light of the petition for rehearing, and oral argument by which it was supplemented, and have to say that we reach the conclusion that the former opinion should be adhered to. A minority of the court, including the writer, have a strong doubt as to the correctness of the fourth division of the opinion, respecting the admissibility of the testator's declaration made after the execution of the will. We do not doubt that evidence of subsequent declarations is sometimes admissible. It seems to be well settled that it is, where it tends to show that the testator never understood the contents of the will, or that he lacked testamentary capacity when he made it, or where, in connection with direct evidence of undue influence, the evidence of subsequent declarations is introduced to show and tends to show such mental weakness as rendered the testator susceptible to undue influence. Our doubt is as to whether the evidence is of this character. But as the declaration is a peculiar one, and the precise question will not probably arise again, and as the plaintiffs, in their petition for a rehearing, do not complain of the admission of this evidence, we have not felt called upon to make a more extended examination of the question, or to say more about it than we have said above.

The petition for a rehearing is based upon alleged errors in the giving of instructions. These alleged errors were briefly disposed of in the ninth division of the opinion. In the petition for rehearing, and in the oral argumentaccompanying it, the mode in which the alleged errors were disposed of has been criticised with great freedom. Ordinarily we do not dispose of alleged errors as briefly. But the mode in which this case was presented was a remarkable one. The assigned errors are numbered as high as 29, and several of the assignments embrace numerous alleged errors. We will set out as a specimen two of them. The twenty-fourth assigned error is in these words: “The court erred in giving as a whole the instructions given on its own motion. Erred in giving Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.” The twenty-eighth assigned error is in these words: “The court erred in giving instructions asked by the contestants, and in withholding and refusing instructions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7, as asked by proponents.” How many alleged errors are embraced in the entire assignment it is not easy to say, but they...