Sly v. Hunt

• Decision Date: 19 May 1893
• Citation: 159 Mass. 151,34 N.E. 187
• Parties: SLY v. HUNT.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

159 Mass. 151

34 N.E. 187

SLY v. HUNT.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

May 19, 1893

COUNSEL

J. & R.C. Brown, for plaintiff.

H.J Fuller, for defendant.

OPINION

LATHROP J.

The physical condition of Mrs. Wilmarth from 1885 down to the time of making her will, in October, 1886, and afterwards was an issue in this case. The defendant put in evidence without objection, the record of the probate of her will which had been contested by the plaintiff, and tried by a jury. It appeared from this record that the jury found that Mrs. Wilmarth was of sound and disposing mind and memory at the time of signing the will. The judge ruled, in effect, that the record of the case was conclusive, as between the plaintiff and the defendant, that Mrs. Wilmarth was, at the time of making the will, of sound and disposing mind and memory, so far as making a will was concerned. The correctness of this ruling is the only question open on these exceptions. In Brigham v. Fayerweather, 140 Mass. 411, 5 N.E. 265, the executor of the will of Azubah Brigham brought a bill in equity to have declared void a mortgage deed executed by said Azubah on June 15, 1882, on the ground that he was not of sufficient mental capacity to execute the deed. The defendant offered in evidence the probate of the will of Azubah, executed by him on October 11, 1882, with evidence that his mental capacity was no less on June 15, 1882, than on October 11, 1882. This evidence was excluded, and this court held that it was rightly excluded. That case differs from the one at bar in this particular: The defendants in that case were not parties to the probate of the will, in the sense that they were entitled to be heard, or to take an appeal. In the case at bar the plaintiff and the defendant were parties to the proceeding in the probate court. The question how far a verdict and judgment are conclusive between the parties and their privies was considered at length by this court in Burlen v. Shannon, 99 Mass. 200. Mr. Justice Foster, in delivering the opinion of the court, states the rule thus: "A verdict and judgment are conclusive, by way of estoppel, only as to those facts which were necessarily involved in them, without the existence and proof or admission of which, such a verdict and judgment could not have been rendered. An estoppel is an admission or determination under circumstances of such solemnity that the law will not allow the fact so admitted or established to be afterwards drawn in question between the same parties or their privies. *** When a fact has been once determined in the course of a judicial proceeding, and a final judgment has been rendered in accordance therewith, it cannot be again litigated between the same parties without virtually impeaching the correctness of the former decision, which, from motives of public policy,...