Ramseyer v. Dennis

• Decision Date: 08 June 1917
• Docket Number: No. 22986.,22986.
• Parties: RAMSEYER et al. v. DENNIS et al.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

187 Ind. 420

116 N.E. 417

RAMSEYER et al.

v.DENNIS et al.

No. 22986.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

June 8, 1917.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Howard County; W. C. Purdum, Judge.

Action by Emily Dennis and others against Silas D. Ramseyer, executor, etc., and others. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

James C. Blacklidge, Conrad Wolf, and Earl B. Barnes, all of Kokomo, for appellants. Morrison & McIntosh, of Kokomo, Broo & Byers, and McConnell, Jenkines, Jenkines & Stuart, of Logansport, for appellees.

MYERS, J.

Appellees brought this action to contest the validity of the alleged last will of William A. Tate, who died on February 8, 1914, leaving appellees and appellant Fannie Kirkendall, as his only children, and appellant Gilly A. Tate, his widow. The will in contest is dated September 19, 1895, and its validity is assailed on the statutory ground of “unsoundness of mind.” Acts 1911, p. 325, § 1; section 3154, Burns' 1914;

A trial by a jury resulted in a verdict in favor of appellees, and over appellants' motion for a new trial the court adjudged the will null and void. In this court the only error assigned is the overruling of the motion for a new trial. The reasons in support of the motion most insistently urged are that the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence and is contrary to law.

[1] The allegation of “unsoundness of mind” in the complaint challenged the testamentary capacity of the testator to make a will. Blough v. Parry (1896) 144 Ind. 463, 490, 40 N. E. 70, 43 N. E. 560;Teegarden v. Lewis (1895) 145 Ind. 98, 40 N. E. 1047, 44 N. E. 9;Wiley v. Gordon (1913) 181 Ind. 252, 104 N. E. 500.

[2] The general verdict in favor of appellees amounted to a finding that William A. Tate, on September 19, 1895, did not have testamentary capacity. Warren Construction Co. v. Powell (1909) 173 Ind. 207, 212, 89 N. E. 857;Indianapolis Traction, etc., Co. v. Klentschy (1906) 167 Ind. 598, 79 N. E. 908, 10 Ann. Cas. 869.

[3] At this point, in view of the earnest contention of counsel for appellant, we are only concerned in being satisfied that there is some evidence to support the verdict. In this class of cases the facts are for the jury, and a question of law does not arise on the evidence to affect the verdict, unless there is no evidence to sustain an element without which the verdict cannot stand. Republic Iron Co. v. Berkes 1903 162 Ind. 517, 70 N. E. 815;Thompson v. Beatty (1908) 171 Ind. 579, 86 N. E. 961.

A careful review of a great number of cases reported in this as well as in other jurisdictions compels the conclusion that nearly every will contest case has its distinctive and often influential features, bearing upon the ultimate question of testamentary capacity, and for that reason each case, to a great extent, is controlled by its own particular facts and circumstances. Usually the difficulty lies in being able to mark the border between reason and insanity, or, in other words, to fix the point where capacity ends and incapacity begins. As said in Re Carver's Estate (1893) 3 Misc. Rep. 567, 23 N. Y. Supp. 753:

“The law does not, of course, attempt to define any particular grade of mental ability or acumen necessary to qualify one to make a will. Wills are made by all classes of people, in every station of life, and under almost ever conceivable set of circumstances; by persons of weak intellect, and by those of magnificent ability; sometimes in the midst of life and business prosperity, at other times in extremis, or while overwhelmed with adversity. Hence it is impossible to formulate any precise rules applicable to any particular case.”

In Teegarden v. Lewis, supra, 145 Ind. at page 101, 40 N. E. 1048, this court said:

“Testamentary capacity is determined upon the inquiry: Did the testator possess sufficient strength of mind and memory to know the extent and value of his property, the number and names of those who were the natural objects of his bounty, their deserts with reference to their conduct and treatment towards him, their capacity and necessity, and did he have sufficient active memory to retain all these facts in mind long enough to have his will prepared and executed?”

In the case at bar it appears that the testator had four living children by a deceased wife, and one child by his surviving wife. His second wife, Gilly A. Tate, appellant herein, at the time of their marriage, had four children, all now dead except one, and a one-third interest in 160 acres of land, and some other property. For a time after their marriage they lived on that farm, and then moved to a rented farm, and then to an 80-acre tract, which he bought, and later to a home in Kokomo, all of which he owned at the time of his death. The Tate children lived at home and worked on the farm as members of the family until they were past 21 years of age.

[4][5] Again referring to the fixed standard of testamentary capacity for will-making purposes, the testator must have been mentally capable of comprehending and understanding his act, and all the conditions that would enter into its rational performance, as well as understanding his choice between one disposition and another, and must have capacity not only of comprehending the extent of his property, and the nature of the claims of those whom he excluded from participating in his property, but of deliberately forming an intelligent purpose of excluding them. True, testator may have been mentally unsound. He may have been a person possessed of delusions or monomania; but unless it appears that these or such unsoundness in some manner entered into the making of the will, or that his mental capacity was below the standard fixed by the adjudicated cases, an action to contest on the ground of unsoundness of mind must fail. Wiley v. Gordon, supra; Burkhart v. Gladish (1890) 123 Ind. 337, 24 N. E. 118;Humphrey v. Mottier (1911) 48 Ind. App. 469, 96 N. E. 38.

In the case at bar appellants insist that there is no evidence from which the jury could fairly infer that the testator, at the time the will was made, was of unsound mind within the meaning of the statute. The record shows that 16 nonexpert witnesses, after testifying to various conversations, business transactions, and describing his appearance, stated that in their opinion William A. Tate, on the date the will was made, was a person of unsound mind. Among the facts, but by no means all, upon which they based their opinion we find the following statements: A few years before the will in contest was executed the testator was exceedingly...