In re Estate of Owen
In re Estate of Owen
Opinion of the Court
John C. Owen, the testator, died February 33, 1903. The subject of this controversy is a will which he executed July 13, 1903. The testator left surviving him five sons and three daughters, his youngest child being thirty-five years of age. There were, also nine grandchildren, the issue of his son Albert and of a daughter, Alzena German, both of whom died prior to the testator. The will in controversy was offered for probate by Thomas Given, a son, and objections were filed by the grandchildren who were of full age, and upon their application a guardian ad litem for the minor grandchildren ivas appointed by the -county court, and also for an incompetent daughter, Emma. The county court admitted the will to probate, and from his decision the guardian ad litem took an appeal to the district court. The adult grandchildren did not appeal. In the district court the case ivas tried on the pleadings filed in the county court, and resulted in a verdict sustaining the will. The objections urged against the will were that the testator did not possess sufficient mental capacity to make a last ivill and testament at the time the purported, will was executed; that it was procured by undue influence exercised upon the testator by his wife and three of his sons, and that the testator’s mind had been poisoned toward the contestants by the ivife and sons of the testator so that he did not possess sufficient mental capacity to compre
The first objection urged is that the proponent rested without proof of the testator’s death, and relating to this objection we have to say that we will not presume that the contestants were expending their time and energy in objecting to the probate of the will of a person not deceased,. and calling upon the court to appoint a guardian ad litem, for the minor heirs who certainly had no interest unless the party in whose estate they claimed a share was dead at the time. Conceding that the objection filed against the probate of the will, so far as it related to the undue influence1 exercised by the wife and children of the testator in procuring it, was sufficiently specific, of which we have grave doubts, a careful perusal of the evidence fails to disclose any evidence which, in our judgment, has a tendency to support it.
Coming now to the mental capacity of the testator, there are but two or three circumstances detailed by the witnesses for the contestants which could be considered as tending in any degree to l’aise a doubt that the testator at the time of making the will was not in full possession of his faculties, and these circumstances have mostly been explained away. It is conceded that he omitted forty acres of his land from the Avill. The attorney Avho dreAv the will was calk'd to the house of the testator for that purpose. He testified that the old gentleman gaAre him a full description of his property, having the same in mind without reference to any notes or memorandum, and that the forty acres omitted from the will was given him with directions to have it equally divided among his heirs, but that in drafting the will he overlooked this particular forty, and its omission from the will was not caused by oversight or forgetfulness on the part of the old gentleman, but was his own oversight. It is shown also that on one occasion, on going home from a political meeting, he got lost in a cornfield and had to call for assistance to take him to the house. The testator lived in the village of
It would be useless to spend time in discussing the errors alleged on the rulings of the Court in the admission and refusal to receive evidence. If we take into < 1 deration all the evidence offered by the contestants wu h was rejected by the trial court, and exclude from con. ¡deration all evidence offered by the proponent and receive* 1 by the court on which error is now predicated, still we th‘">k that the verdict of the jury could not be different from that returned, and that any other verdict should be set aside.
We recommend therefore that the order of the district court admitting the will to probate be affirmed.
Affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In re Estate of John C. Owen
- Status
- Published