Stephens v. Bonner

• Decision Date: 14 January 1932
• Docket Number: 8342.
• Citation: Stephens v. Bonner, 174 Ga. 128, 162 S.E. 383 (Ga. 1932)
• Parties: STEPHENS v. BONNER.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

162 S.E. 383

174 Ga. 128

STEPHENS v. BONNER.

No. 8342.

Supreme Court of Georgia

January 14, 1932

Syllabus by the Court.

In will caveat, existence and operation of undue influence and monomania are generally questions for jury.

On issue of undue influence, testator's dealings with beneficiaries, habits, motives, feelings, character confidential relations, reasonableness or unreasonableness of will, mental and physical condition, and manner and conduct may be considered (Civ. Code 1910, § 3834).

Undue influence exercised by widow, in constant association with testator, held jury question, where testator left daughter by former marriage only $25 (Civ. Code 1910, § § 3834, 3841).

Monomania is indicated where one becomes imbued with hallucination or delusion, impervious to reason that his child is child of another (Civ. Code 1910, § 3840).

"Partial insanity" or "monomania" exists when person conceives something non-existent to exist and cannot be permanently reasoned out of that conception (Civ. Code 1910 § 3840).

Issue of testator's monomania held for jury under evidence that he became obsessed with idea that daughter was not his child (Civ. Code 1910, § 3840).

1. Undue influence in procuring a will may exist in many forms and it may be operated through diverse channels. The existence and effective power of undue influence is not always susceptible of direct proof. It may be proved by circumstantial evidence. The same may be said of a caveat based upon the ground of monomania. And yet it must be admitted that either undue influence or monomania, or the two acting conjointly, or either one as ancillary or contributing to the active power of the other, may paralyze testamentary capacity. Our courts have uniformly held that the existence and operation of both undue influence and monomania are questions of fact for the solution of a jury.

2. Forces so subtle, so multiform, so variant in each case in which they may be disclosed, and in which the proof of their existence is so often dependent upon circumstances, present questions in which the court should properly leave any doubts which may arise from the evidence to the solution of "the doctors of doubt, the jury."

3. Section 3834 of the Civil Code declares: "The very nature of a will requires that it should be freely and voluntarily executed; hence, anything which destroys this freedom of volition invalidates a will; such as fraudulent practices upon testator's fears, affections, or sympathies, duress or any undue influence, whereby the will of another is substituted for the wishes of the testator."

4. A very wide range of testimony is permissible on the issue of undue influence. This is due to the fact that undue influence seldom can be shown except by circumstantial evidence. It results from the circumstances and surroundings of the testator and his associations with the person or persons exercising the undue influence. For this reason it is proper, on this issue, to consider the testator's dealings and associations with the beneficiaries; his habits, motives, feelings; his strength or weakness of character; his confidential, family, social, and business relations; the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the will; his mental and physical condition at the time the will was made; his manner and conduct; and generally every fact which will throw light on the issue raised by the charge of undue influence.

5. From the unreasonable disposition of the testator's estate, which, under section 3841 of the Civil Code, "should have much weight in the decision of the question," we think a jury would have been authorized, with the aid of other circumstances which appear in the brief of evidence, and reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, to find that there was undue influence by the propounder, as charged in the caveat, which subverted the volition of the testator and substituted therefor the will of the propounder.

6. If one becomes imbued with an hallucination or delusion, and is incapable of reasoning upon the theory that one is not his child, and not entitled to his affection or notice, it goes beyond mere prejudice, illogical reasoning, unfounded suspicion, or the like, and evidences an actual diseased condition of the mind; in other words partial insanity or monomania. It exists wherever a person conceives something to exist which has no existence whatever, and is incapable of being permanently reasoned out of that conception.

7. The court erred in directing the verdict.

Error from Superior Court, Baldwin County; James B. Park, Judge.

Proceedings by Mrs. J. D. Bonner for the probate of the will of J. D. Bonner, deceased, in which Mrs. R. B. Stephens filed a caveat. Judgment was entered for the propounder, caveator's motion for new trial was overruled, and caveator brings error.

Reversed.

BECK, P.J., dissenting.

C. A. Giles, of Milledgeville, and J. W. Warren and W. M. Goodwin, both of Sandersville, for plaintiff in error.

Hammond & Kennedy, of Augusta, and Frank W. Bell, of Milledgeville, for defendant in error.

RUSSELL C.J.

This writ of error is based upon the result of an appeal from the court of ordinary. Mrs. Bonner filed for probate in the court of ordinary the will of her deceased husband, and Mrs. Stephens filed a caveat upon two grounds; one, undue influence, and the other monomania. By consent of the parties, no trial was had in the court of ordinary; the issue being by consent appealed to the superior court. It is recited in the bill of exceptions that the caveator admitted a prima facie case in favor of the propounder, and assumed the burden of proving that the paper sought to be propounded was not entitled to probate, because of undue influence exercised over the testator by the propounder, and furthermore on account of an aversion, prejudice, and bias which developed into monomania, whereby the will of Mrs. Julia Dunn Bonner was substituted for that of the testator himself. At the conclusion of the testimony, the court directed a verdictin favor of the propounder. The caveator made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and to that judgment exception was taken.

The only question presented by the record is whether there was sufficient evidence to require the court to submit the issue to a jury. Or, in other words, would no jury have been authorized to find a different verdict from that directed by the court? "Where, upon a review of all the evidence, with the reasonable deductions therefrom, it is manifest that there is but one finding which can be legally supported, it is not reversible error to direct a verdict." This ruling is quoted in the brief of defendant in error from Cleveland-Manning Piano Co. v. Stewart, 15 Ga.App. 657, 84 S.E. 174, in which the writer had the honor to deliver the opinion in behalf of the Court of Appeals, and he still believes that the statement enunciated a sound principle. However, after a very painstaking examination of the brief of evidence in this case, considered in connection with the nature of the questions of law raised by the caveat, we have reached the conclusion that issues were presented in the trial under review which cannot properly be determined by a court, and which should have been submitted to the jury. As suggested by counsel for defendant in error, a superabundance of immaterial testimony was drawn out in the examination of the caveatrix, whereby that which is material is bedimmed and beclouded. Furthermore, the very skillful cross-examination by the very able and learned counsel for the propounder greatly extended the testimony of the caveatrix into immaterial recitals and into some opinionative and theoretical extravaganzas. and these were accentuated, no doubt, by the casual interruption of her narrative for the introduction, as a witness for the propounder, of the minister of the gospel who performed the second marriage ceremony of the testator. We do not doubt that this break in the continuity of the testimony of caveatrix was for a good reason which addressed itself to the sound discretion of the court, but the diversion from the testimony for the caveatrix to testimony for the propounder certainly elongated the record of the testimony so as to obscure from the view of this writer, on his first examination of the record, a number of facts submitted in evidence, which altogether changed his first impression of the case.

Undue influence in procuring a will may exist in many forms, and it may be operated through diverse channels. The existence and effective power of undue influence is not always susceptible of direct proof. It may be proved by circumstantial evidence. The same may be said of a caveat based upon the ground of monomania. And yet it must be admitted that either undue influence or monomania, or the two acting conjointly, or either ancillary or contributing to the active power of the other, may paralyze testamentary capacity. Our courts have uniformly held that the existence and operation of both undue influence and monomania are questions of fact for the solution of a jury. Forces so subtle, so multiform, so...