Sansona v. Laraia

• Decision Date: 19 March 1914
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: SANSONA v. LARAIA.

90 A. 28

88 Conn. 136

SANSONA

v. LARAIA.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 19, 1914.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William S. Case, Judge.

Will contest by Maria Sansona against Gian B. Laraia, executor. From a judgment sustaining the will, contestant appeals. Affirmed.

Joseph L. Barbour and Salvator D'Bsopo, both of Hartford, for appellant. Sidney E. Clark, of Hartford, for appellee.

THAYER, J. The application to correct the appeal is dismissed. What is sought by it is to have the court's finding corrected. Only the first of the corrections asked for would be proper in a finding by the court in a jury case. The others are findings of fact to be made from the evidence, which was for the jury. The first is only a fuller statement of the appellant's claim than that which the court made. The latter was sufficient for the purposes of the appeal.

The appellant's sole claim was "that the testator was so unfamiliar with the English language, which was the language employed by the scrivener who drew the will, that he did not understand or comprehend the alleged provisions of said will, and did not have capacity to make said will in the sense of being able to intelligently and understandingly converse with the scrivener as to the provisions of said will, or to convey to the scrivener his wishes concerning the disposition of the property." This, which is the claim of the appellant, as stated in his application for correction of the appeal, is substantially his claim as stated in his reason of appeal, and the court has found that she offered evidence tending to prove the testator's ignorance of the English language and inability to converse in it intelligently.

The court, after stating to the jury in the early part of the charge the appellant's reasons of appeal, instructed them that, if it should appear that the testator "was induced to sign the paper under some misapprehension as to its meaning or by the misrepresentation of some one else as to its meaning, and that the provisions of the will, as formulated in it, were not the provisions that he intended to subscribe to, and that he supposed that he was subscribing to, then the paper could not be regarded as his will. Later in the charge, the court told the jury that, if after investigation they were satisfied that the paper offered was the last will of Mr. Laraia, and was executed by him in conformity with the statutory requirements, they should "from that point take up the issue which at this point is imported into the case here and upon which issue the contestant bears the burden of proof. On this issue, unless you find that the paper was executed under an honest misapprehension as to its contents, or was secured from Mr. Laraia by deceit or misapprehension as to what it contained, and in either event did not express his own free wishes and intentions, I say, unless you find these essential facts proven by a fair preponderance of the evidence, you must sustain the will." Error is assigned on this part of the charge, as "restricting within too narrow limits the opportunities of which the appellant might avail herself in contesting the will."

If the appellee sustained his burden by showing that the testator, at the time he executed the will, was of sound mind, and that the will was duly executed by him, the presumption would be that it was a valid will. If it was not so, but had been improperly obtained, the burden was upon the contestant to show it. Rockwell's Appeal from Probate, 54 Conn. 119, 121, 6 Atl. 198.

Paragraph 2 of the amended reasons of appeal states the only sufficient...