Williams v. Williams
| Decision Date | 18 May 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 24065,24065 |
| Citation | 223 Ga. 374,155 S.E.2d 383 |
| Parties | Doris Jones WILLIAMS v. Floyd E. WILLIAMS, by Next Friend. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
E. Louis Adams, Albany, for appellant.
Eugene C. Black, Albany, for appellee.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court
The appeal is from a judgment denying the appellant's motion for summary judgment in an action brought against her by the appellee, through next friend, to set aside three deeds to 150 acres of land, in which the appellee was the grantor and the appellant the grantee. The three deeds were executed on July 15, 1963, April 27, 1964, and May 1, 1964, respectively, and each conveyed the same tract of land, all subject to a life estate in the grantor's father. The grounds alleged in the petition, as amended, for setting aside the deeds are mental incompetency to make a valid deed, and fraud on the part of the grantee, consisting of her feeding intoxicating liquor to him, and causing him, while in an intoxicatetd condition, to execute the deeds to her, while telling him they were being made to his daughter. After hearing and consideration of evidence consisting of depositions, answers to interrogatories, and affidavits, the trial judge denied the appellant's motion for summary judgment. The sole enumeration of error is the denial of the motion for summary judgment. Held:
The trial court properly denied the motion for summary judgment as the evidence was conflicting on the material issues, whether the appellee was competent to make a valid deed, and whether the appellant procured the execution of the deeds to her by fraud, and there is a genuine issue of fact on material issues to be determined. See Code Ann. § 110-1203.
The burden of proof rests upon the grantor to show that none of the three deeds are valid. Thus he must show that he was mentally incompetent to make each of the deeds, or that they were each procured by fraud practiced upon him by the grantee. 'In order to avoid a deed on the ground of mental incapacity of the grantor, he must have been non compos mentis, that is, entirely without understanding, at the time the deed was executed.' Thomas v. Lockwood, 198 Ga. 437(1), 31 S.E.2d 791. In determining such issue, evidence as to the state of the grantor's mind for a reasonable period both before and after the transaction may be considered, and might be such as would authorize a finding against contractual capacity at the time the deed was executed, despite evidence of witnesses who were present at the time and testified that the grantor did have such capacity. Thomas v. Lockwood, 198 Ga. 437, 446, 31 S.E.2d 791, supra, and cases cited; Pantone v. Pantone, 206 Ga. 305, 57 S.E.2d 77; Kesler v. Kesler, 219 Ga. 592(2), 134...
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...the ultimate fact, the latter to facts which are evidentiary only.' In 1967 a unanimous court reiterated these rules. Williams v. Williams, 223 Ga. 374, 155 S.E.2d 383. Also, see Smith v. Smith, 229 Ga. 28, 30, 189 S.E.2d 70. The trial judge erred in excluding the testimony here 2. The thir......
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...he must have been non compos mentis, that is entirely without understanding at the time the deed was executed. Williams v. Williams, 223 Ga. 374, 375, 155 S.E.2d 383 (1967); Thomas v. Lockwood, 198 Ga. 437(1), 31 S.E.2d 791 (1944). Where the evidence relied on to show mental weakness of the......
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