Smith v. Kopitzki

• Decision Date: 21 June 1912
• Parties: SMITH et al. v. KOPITZKI et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

254 Ill. 498

98 N.E. 953

SMITH et al.

v.KOPITZKI et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 21, 1912.

Error to Circuit Court, Woodford County; George W. Patton, Judge.

Suit by R. E. Smith and others against Rebecca Kopitzki and another. There was a decree for plaintiffs, and defendants bring error. Reversed and remanded.Barnes & Magoon, for plaintiffs in error.

Wolfenbarger & May and Joseph A. Weil, for defendants in error.

DUNN, C. J.

This is a writ of error prosecuted to reverse a decree of the circuit court of Woodford county, setting aside two deeds on account of the mental incapacity of the grantor and the undue influence of the grantee. Jacob Patterson, the grantor, died on July 13, 1908, at the age of 92 years. His heirs were his daughter, Rebecca Kopitzki, the plaintiff in error, and his grandchildren, the defendants in error, who are the children of a daughter and a son, who died in his lifetime. The other plaintiff in error is Joseph Kopitzki, Rebecca's husband. The deeds were made to Rebecca Koptizki, one on October 19, 1903, the other on February 7, 1908, each conveying 80 acres of land; the two tracts constituting the grantor's farm.

Jacob Patterson came from Ohio in 1853 to Woodford county, where he spent the rest of his life. His wife died in 1892. From that time his daughter and her husband lived with him on the farm in controversy. On June 15, 1898, while crossing the railroad track in a buggy, he was struck by a train and severely injured, sustaining a fractureof the jaw, the loss of the sight of one eye, and the partial loss of the sight of the other, and other serious injuries. The defendants in error contend that after this accident he was affected with senile dementia, and had not sufficient mental capacity for the transaction of business, but was under the control of his daughter, who sustained a fiduciary relation to him, and who caused him to execute the deeds in question without consideration.

The second deed reserved a life estate to the grantor. The first reserved to the grantor the right to occupy and live in his home place on the land, and to be boarded and washed for by the grantee during the remainder of his life. Other than this latter so-called reservation, no consideration existed for either deed. They are to be sustained, if at all, as gifts. The questions involved are therefore the mental capacity of the grantor, the undue influence of the grantee, and the existence of the fiduciary relation.

The same contrariety of opinions exists among the witnesses as is usually found in cases involving the acts of an old man, who has ceased to be engaged in active business. Twenty-three witnesses were examined for the defendants in error, nine of whom were complainants or their spouses. Thirty-five were examined for the plaintiffs in error, besides themselves. The abstract consists of 278 pages, and each side has filed a brief of over 135 pages, devoted almost entirely, as was, of course, inevitable to a discussion of the testimony. These facts are stated to indicate that it is impossible, within the reasonable limits of an opinion, to set out and discuss the testimony of the witnesses. We have read the abstract and the briefs, and without attempting to set down an analysis of the testimony shall state our conclusions.

[1] Much of the testimony is of little value, because the opinions expressed as to the grantor's capacity appear to be based upon inadequate opportunities of observation. Brief casual conversations at chance meetings, particularly with strangers, small purchases of tobacco, and transactions of a similar character, do not form a satisfactory basis for determining a person's mental powers. While such occurrences, and opinions based on them, are competent evidence, they do not carry much weight.

[2] Patterson was 82 years old at the time of his injury. He prosecuted an action against the railroad company, in which there were two trials and one reversal by the Appellate Court. He attended these trials and testified. The case was finally settled, and the railroad company paid the amount agreed upon. Patterson employed counsel and settled with and paid them; and it does not seem to have occurred to any one that he was not competent to transact that business. He drove about to the various small towns in the neighborhood, and to some extent transacted business connected with his farm, sold grain, bought lumber, barbed wire, a buggy and harness and other articles. The complainants themselves and the husbands of some of them, testified to facts tending to show mental incapacity at the time; and two of them testify to his signing in blank, and giving to them, promissory notes, without any explanation or reason for it, when, as they said, they were testing his mind with a view to having a conservator appointed. No application, however, was made for this purpose. Other witnesses testified to the mental incapacity of the testator; but we are of the opinion that the preponderance of the evidence does not show such incapacity at the time of the execution of the first deed. This deed was written by J. C. Irving and acknowledged before him as a notary public. Irving had been circuit clerk of Woodford...