Taylor v. Taylor

Decision Date29 November 1910
Docket Number21,399
Citation93 N.E. 9,174 Ind. 670
PartiesTaylor v. Taylor et al
CourtIndiana Supreme Court

From Delaware Circuit Court; Joseph G. Leffler, Judge.

Action by Henry H. Taylor against Samuel K. Taylor and another. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

C. B Templer, Thompson & Thompson and R. W. Sprague, for appellant.

Orr & Orr, for appellees.

OPINION

Myers, C. J.

Appellant filed his complaint July 3, 1907, making appellees Samuel K Taylor, who is his brother, and the executor, defendants, to set aside and revoke the probate of the will of his mother, on the grounds of her unsoundness of mind, and undue influence exerted over her in the execution of her will.

The sole error presented is upon overruling the motion for a new trial.

The testatrix was stricken with apoplexy July 12, 1899, at the age of sixty-three years, and died in January, 1907. The will was dated July 3, 1900. The stroke of apoplexy affected her speech, but she improved so that she could talk. It affected her locomotion and the use of her entire left side, so that she could not walk thereafter, but was moved about in a wheel-chair. When first paralyzed her mouth and one eye were drawn, but these conditions became almost normal before the will was made. The use of her left arm and left leg was never restored. She had a second stroke of apoplexy in July, 1906. She was the wife of a farmer, and owned 121 acres of land, upon which she and her husband resided. She became a widow in 1905. She managed her domestic and household affairs, through directions to others, from a period shortly after the first stroke until her death. By her will she bequeathed all her personal property to her husband, devised forty-one acres of land to him for life, with remainder to her son Samuel K. Taylor, and also devised to said Samuel forty acres additional, and to appellant forty acres. Her husband had been for many years an invalid. She informed the justice of the peace, who drew her will, as to the disposition of her real property, which was irregular in outline. After reviving from the stroke, she directed her servants in reference to the household affairs, the purchase of clothing, the garden, the fowls and the marketing, and inquired about, and took part in the arrangements for, the farming operations. At times she cried without any expressed reason for it, though at one time she seemed to be affected by the possible results her affliction might have upon her husband and their property affairs. She read newspapers, inquired about the neighbors and their families, and laughed and talked some with her closest friends, but was not able to talk freely. Samuel K. Taylor and his wife waited on her continuously for about nine months. The physicians testified as to the tendency of apoplexy to impair the mental faculties, and as to its tendency to be progressive. The evidence is conflicting as to soundness and unsoundness of mind at the time the will was executed. With no claims of undue influence, the jury found for appellees. Upon a complaint filed January 6, 1906, the testatrix was declared of unsound mind and incapable of managing her estate. Upon the trial, the contestant offered in evidence the petition, answer of the clerk, and the judgment of the court. This evidence was excluded, and error is here predicated on that action. There was no evidence given or offered that the testatrix was of unsound mind or enfeebled prior to the stroke of apoplexy. The evidence offered was of a status found to exist five and one-half years afterward. It cannot be doubted that much latitude in point of time, both before and after the transaction under inquiry, is allowable in determining the question of soundness or unsoundness of mind. The reason for the rule is apparent. The consistency or inconsistency of acts or declarations, differences in conduct towards family, relatives and friends, and differences in habits of life at different times, if they exist, are relevant to, and sometimes highly indicative of conditions of mind, and therefore competent for the purpose of determining that question. In some states the statute authorizes the inquiry de lunatico to be extended to a time anterior to the inquiry itself, but our statute does not authorize an inquiry to be made of prior conditions, or of a status formerly fixed; though we recognize the prima facie status fixed by an adjudication of insanity, we hold that even though a will is executed after an adjudication of unsoundness, mental capacity may be shown. Harrison v. Bishop (1892), 131 Ind. 161, 31 Am. St. 422, 30 N.E. 1069.

Reliance is based, as to the admissibility of this evidence, on the case of Nichol v. Thomas (1876), 53 Ind. 42. This was an action to set aside a deed upon the ground of the insanity of the grantor. The court admitted in evidence, as tending to show unsoundness when the deed was executed, a judgment declaring the grantor of unsound mind, rendered in a proceeding instituted seven and one-half years later. Other evidence tended to show that he had been of unsound mind for fifteen or twenty years before the deed was executed. The testimony of Doctor Mendenhall, that the grantor, for four years previously, had been of unsound mind, was held to have been erroneously excluded. This evidence tended to show the mental condition of the grantor to within three and one-half years of the date of the deed. While it was held that both the record of the adjudication and the testimony of Doctor Mendenhall were admissible, the opinion does not point out the grounds of the admissibility of the evidence. It is quite clear that Doctor Mendenhall's testimony was admissible and competent, because he was an expert, and his testimony was coupled with evidence that the impaired mental condition of the grantor had existed for many years prior to the conveyance. The doctor's testimony was directed specifically to detailed acts denoting mental condition, but that is a very different character of evidence from the record of a subsequent adjudication of unsoundness of mind, and where no prior weakness is shown. Evidence of prior acts may be relevant as tending to show continuance of a condition shown to have existed long previously--a showing not present in this case--on the presumption of the continuance of a condition of mind once shown to exist. But a relevant fact may be excluded without constituting harmful error, so that in that case the admission of the record was relevant and clearly not harmful, owing to the presumption of continuing incapacity, while the exclusion of the testimony of Doctor Mendenhall was harmful by reason of the same presumption, and the special facts disclosed by Doctor Mendenhall. That this was the view of the court in that case is disclosed by the citation of Rush v. Megee (1871), 36 Ind. 69. A number of cases are cited by appellant holding that an adjudication of insanity is competent evidence, even though the adjudication is subsequent to the execution of the deed or will. An examination of these cases discloses that, with one or two exceptions, they are cases where under the statute, in proceedings de lunatico, provision was made for a retrospective finding, and it had been made; in others, the adjudication was made after the date of the transaction inquired into, and admitted, and the admission held not error; others, where there was evidence of mental incapacity prior to the date under inquiry; other cases are instances where adjudication had preceded the date of the question in controversy, and involved the effect of the adjudication as to whether it was conclusive, or mere prima facie evidence of insanity. While large latitude should be allowed in all such proceedings, and while there is no agreed limit of time within which the prior or subsequent condition is to be considered, the circumstances of each case, in the very nature of things, ought to control, and the discretion of the trial judge, though reviewable for abuse, ought to have weight. Enlow v. State (1900), 154 Ind. 664, 57 N.E. 539; Bower v. Bower (1895), 142 Ind. 194, 197, 41 N.E. 523.

The question in such cases is necessarily one of relevancy. Howes v. Colburn (1896), 165 Mass. 385, 43 N.E. 125; Lane v. Moore (1890), 151 Mass. 87, 23 N.E. 828, 21 Am. St. 430; Shailer v. Bumstead (1868), 99 Mass. 112; Herster v. Herster (1889), 122 Pa. 239, 16 A. 342, 9 Am. St. 95; Robinson v. Hutchinson (1853), 26 Vt. 38, 60 Am. Dec. 298; In re Merriman's Appeal (1896), 108 Mich. 454, 66 N.W. 372; Pittard v. Foster (1882), 12 Ill.App. 132; 1 Wigmore, Evidence § 233, and cases cited; 3 Wigmore, Evidence § 1671, and cases cited.

There are well-considered cases holding, as wholly inadmissible, a record of adjudication, after a period as short as two years subsequent to the execution of the instrument, as only fixing a status as of the date of the adjudication. Howes v. Colburn, supra; Entwistle v. Meikle (1899), 180 Ill. 9, 54 N.E. 217; Rhoades v. Fuller (1897), 139 Mo. 179, 40 S.W. 760; Chase v. Spencer (1907), 150 Mich. 99, 113 N.W. 578; Knox v. Haug (1892), 48 Minn. 58, 50 N.W. 934; In re Pinney's Will (1880), 27 Minn. 280, 6 N.W. 791; Hopson v. Boyd (1845), 45 Ky. 296; Shirley v. Taylor's Heirs (1844), 44 Ky. 99; Page, Wills § 402.

The inquiry must be sufficiently near in point of time to aid the jury in determining the mental condition at the time of the execution of the will. Enlow v. State, supra; Herster v. Herster, supra; Lane v. Moore, supra; Nonnemacher v. Nonnemacher (1894), 159 Pa. 634, 28 A. 439; Gorgas v. Saxman (1907), 216 Pa. 237, 65 A. 619; Green v. State (1894), 59 Ark. 246, 27 S.W. 5.

The argument here is simply an inference from a remote fact. In the case of McCoy v. Jordan (1904), 184 Mass....

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2 cases
  • Taylor v. Taylor
    • United States
    • Indiana Supreme Court
    • 29 Noviembre 1910
  • Cripe v. Coates
    • United States
    • Indiana Appellate Court
    • 14 Enero 1954
    ... ...         The rule announced in that case has been followed by both this court and the supreme court. Taylor v. Taylor, 1910, 174 Ind. 670, 679, 680, 93 N.E. 9; Dowd v. Andrews, 1922, 77 Ind.App. 627, 632, 134 N.E. 294; Luther v. Bash, 1916, 61 Ind.App. 535, ... ...

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