Coghlin v. Coghlin
Coghlin v. Coghlin
Opinion of the Court
The general rule for determining whether the will was revoked or not is found in Section 5953, Revised Statutes. Its related provision is as follows: “A will shall be revoked by the testator tearing, canceling, obliterating, or destroying the same with the intention of revok
We recognize fully that there can be no partial revocation. And if a portion only of a will be erased or canceled with intent to revoke that part only but not with intent to revoke the whole will, the act will be ineffective and if the canceled part can be restored or is legible the will should be admitted, including the canceled portion, as a valid part of the will. “The ultimate question therefore is — Did Dennis Coghlin intend to revoke only that part of the will which he tore up and threw in the waste-basket? Or did he intend to revoke the will as a whole? But in considering the pertinency of Mr. Waite’s testimony it becomes necessary to consider the relation of the part torn out to the balance of the will.”
It is true that in preceding items of the will there were provisions for the vesting of title to property of the testator in the executors named in the twelfth item in trust for beneficiaries named. But for two reasons we think the relation of those parts of the will to the twelfth item do not justify the conclusion that the removal of the single page denoted an intention to destroy or revoke the entire instrument. The intention of the testator would be suggested by what he understood the effect of his act to be. We should probably err if we imputed to him the understanding of counsel upon that subject. Furthermore, if we should assume that he regarded, not merely the physical;
Counsel insist that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the conversations between the testator and his counsel when the will, with its restored page, was before them and the subject considered was a codicil to change the provisions respecting executors. In support of this objection it is urged that a will once destroyed, with the intention of revoking it, cannot be rehabilitated by its subsequent recognition by the testator as his last will and testament. The soundness of this proposition is not challenged but it does not seem to reach the disputed point. The jury were clearly instructed that a will once destroyed with the intention of revoking it, cannot be thus restored, and that the testimony in question was admitted for the sole purpose of indicating the intention with which the testator removed and tore the single page. That the evidence was competent for the purpose stated in the instruction cannot be regarded as a matter of doubt since the decision of this court in Behrens v. Behrens, 47 Ohio St., 323. It is true that in that case a will which had been known to exist had been lost or destroyed
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.