Pruitt v. Pruitt

• Decision Date: 30 December 1976
• Citation: 343 So.2d 495
• Parties: Ada Elizabeth PRUITT v. Johnny Len PRUITT et al. SC 1813.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 495

343 So.2d 495

Ada Elizabeth PRUITT v. Johnny Len PRUITT et al.

SC 1813.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Dec. 30, 1976.

Rehearing Denied March 11, 1977.

Donald W. Lang of Bell, Lang, Bell & Fielding, Sylacauga, Alfred W. Goldthwaite, Montgomery, for appellant.

Lister H. Proctor of Proctor & Vaughn, Sylacauga, for appellees.

BEATTY, Justice.

This is an appeal from a verdict of a jury in favor of the contestant of a will. We reverse and remand.

The will in question was executed by the testator, John A. Pruitt, on March 22, 1973 and named his sister, Ada Elizabeth Pruitt, sole beneficiary and executrix. On August 2, 1974 the testator was injured in an accident and died on August 24, 1974. Ada In response to the complaint of the defendant-contestants, the proponent filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the court lacked Jurisdiction over each of the contestants, and proceeded to attack the Standing of each contestant, that is, that Johnny Len Pruitt was not the son of John A. Pruitt, that Geneva Pruitt was never married to John A. Pruitt, that John Will Saxon was removed as trustee of a prior will by 'the purported codicil' to that will, and that Otis Burton, Jr. was removed under that codicil because the codicil vitiated the prior will in its entirety. No affidavits, testimony, or other evidence in support of or in opposition to these grounds was tendered, and the motion was overruled. Because the plaintiff-proponent contends that this was error, in that Geneva Butler and John Will Saxon had no direct legal or equitable interest to litigate, we will attend to this issue first.

petitioned the Probate Court of Talladega County to probate this will and shortly thereafter this contest was filed by Johnny Len Pruitt (alleged to be the son of the testator), by his next friend, Geneva Pruitt; Geneva Pruitt individually (alleged to be the testator's widow), John Will Saxon, and Otis Burton, Jr. The contest referred to a will of March, 1970 allegedly executed by John A. Pruitt which created a testamentary trust for Johnny Len Pruitt, with Saxon and Burton as trustees. The contesting complaint alleged further that Ada had exercised fraud and undue influence upon John to procure the will of March 22, 1973, and the pretrial order recites these as the issues in controversy.

A motion to dismiss can never be granted unless it appears that the movant would not be entitled to recover under any theory of the case or any applicable state of facts. Willis v. Buchman, 30 Ala.App. 33, 199 So. 886, rev. on other grounds 240 Ala. 386, 199 So. 892, 132 ALR 1179 (1940). Upon consideration of such a motion, the allegations of the complaint are construed in a light most favorable to the complainant, with all doubts and allegations resolved in his favor. Willis v. Buchman, supra. If there was any common question of law or fact which would arise with respect to their rights, the defendant-contestants might be joined in one action. Rule 20, ARCP. Thus, if these contestants had an interest in the question whether the will of March 22, 1973, or the will of March, 1970 and its codicil of May 17, 1971, was valid, they had standing to sue. Of course, one question of fact common to all contestants was whether John A. Pruitt executed the will of March 22, 1973 free from fraud and undue influence as alleged in the complaint. Whether they were interested depends upon whether they qualify as contestants under Tit. 61, § 52, Alabama Code:

A will, . . . may be contested . . . by any person interested therein, or by any person, who, if the testator had died intestate, would have been an heir or distributee of his estate . . ..

Under this statute, if a person has a direct legal or equitable interest in the decedent's estate, in privity with the decedent, 'whether as heir, purchaser, or beneficiary under another will, which would be destroyed or injuriously affected by the establishment of the contested will,' he has standing to contest the will. Allen v. Pugh, 206 Ala. 10, 89 So. 470 (1921); Braasch v. Worthington, 191 Ala. 210, 67 So. 1003 (1915).

Considering the allegations of the contestants' complaint as true, Johnny Len Pruitt (Butler), as a beneficiary under the prior will of March, 1970, had a direct equitable interest which would have been destroyed by the establishment of the contested will. Geneva Pruitt, who was alleged in the complaint to be the widow of John A. Pruitt, would have been entitled to a distributive share of the personal estate had the testator died intestate, Tit. 16, § 10, Alabama, Code and possibly dower. Tit. 34, § 40, Alabama Code. Thus she had a direct legal interest. John Will Saxon, as testamentary trustee under the March, 1970 will, was a 'person interested therein' because as trustee he had a direct legal interest in specific property for the benefit of Johnny Len Pruitt, and active duties under that Numerous reversible errors are claimed by the plaintiff-proponent, among them being the assertion that the evidence does not support the verdict of undue influence or fraud on the part of Ada Pruitt. The evidence was voluminous, and while much of it portrayed John Pruitt as having had an affectionate regard to Johnny Len, whom Geneva Butler claimed was John Pruitt's son, that evidence was devoid of any quality establishing fraud or undue influence on the part of Ada Pruitt in procuring the will in question. The evidence concerning her conduct consisted of the following facts:

will. Gunter v. Townsend, 202 Ala. 160, 79 So. 644 (1918). Otis Burton, Jr. alternately alleged to have been appointed trustee under a codicil to the will of March, 1970, would have the same interest. Consequently, the trial court correctly overruled the motion to dismiss.

Ada Pruitt had lived in Washington, D.C. for a number of years where she was employed by the British Embassy, and as a labor organization lobbyist. John called upon her often to use her political connections for the benefit of his friends in Talladega County (just how this was accomplished was not established). She sent him money when he needed it, and paid his taxes several times. She moved to Montgomery in 1970, at a time when John Pruitt's health was bad, fixed a room for him at her house, and attempted to persuade him to leave Sylacauga and live with her. Apparently he never moved from Sylacauga. She kept clothes for him, helped him with his divorce; set up receipt books for his business; gave him $1,326.45 before she moved to Montgomery, and she spent $1,069.00 in his behalf afterward, including his 1973 tax bill, $517.50 for an automobile for him, and $75.00 paid to the lawyer who prepared the will in question and a power of attorney authorizing Ada to act for him in the event he became disabled. This latter sum was paid on April 10, 1973, almost three weeks after the execution of the will and after a request made to her by that lawyer. The sum for the car was paid on March 21, 1974, the day before the will was executed.

The will itself was drawn by Alfred Goldthwaite, a Montgomery lawyer who had represented Ada Pruitt since 1967, and for whom she had distributed political literature in 1972 and 1974. Goldthwaite's secretary had prepared the will approximately three weeks before it was executed. John Pruitt had consulted Goldthwaite in 1972 concerning other transactions, and John and the lawyer had discussed John's will on two occasions approximately thirty days prior to the day on which John executed it.

There was some evidence that John Pruitt consulted a specialist about his poor health in the fall of 1973, and he had experienced some difficulty with his eyesight at an earlier time, but this condition improved in 1971. On March 22, 1973, Ada accompanied John to Mr. Goldthwaite's law office and following an explanation of the will by the lawyer alone with the testator, the will was executed in Mr. Goldthwaite's office, those present at the execution being the testator, the lawyer, and the lawyer's secretary. The original will, and power of attorney executed contemporaneously, were kept in the lawyer's offices.

There was also evidence of statements made to others by both John and Ada in the spring of 1974. John characterized Ada as a very shrewd business woman who wanted everything he had. Ada informed a state trooper on the day of the accident, in August 1974, that she had a power of attorney from John, and told some nurses at the hospital where John had been taken following his accident that she was executor of his will. Ada herself testified that she did not learn of the power of attorney until after the accident, and learned of the will on the day after John's death. She advised John's physician that she wanted John to have no visitors. From the day of the accident to John's death she and Mr. Goldthwaite were in communication by telephone, in his law office, or on trips to Sylacauga. She made the funeral arrangements. Two of the contestant's witnesses to whom John and Ada had made statements both testified to John The appellee maintains that his evidence establishes fraud and undue influence on the part of Ada Pruitt in procuring John Pruitt's will in her favor.

Pruitt's independence of mind: one stated that John did what he wanted to do, the other that nobody could influence him to do anything he did not want to do. Indeed, Geneva Butler herself testified on cross examination that nobody could influence John Pruitt against his will. There was additional evidence from other witnesses pertaining to John Pruitt's statements concerning his intentions on behalf of Johnny Len and Geneva, and evidence of John Pruitt's prior wills designating other and different beneficiaries than those of 1970 and 1973.

Our cases have consistently held that when undue influence is asserted in a will contest, the contestant has the burden, in order to raise a presumption of undue influence, to prove a Dominant confidential relationship and Undue activity in the...