62 Pa. Super. 273 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1916
Opinion by
The will in question is dated Sept. 13,1913. The date of its making was not disputed at the hearing. One of the witnesses to the will testified that the will was signed Sept. 12, 1913, and both testified that it was on Saturday. An examination of the calendar shows that Sept. 12, 1913, did not fall on Saturday. As the numeral 13 in the date 1913 had been altered, the appellants contend that there was a fraudulent change of the date and that the real date was Sept. 12, 1914, for in that year Sept. 13th was on a Saturday. It is much more reasonable to suppose that there was a mistake made in the date by the testatrix than that it was fraudulently changed by some one else. The objection seems to have been an afterthought, for at the hearing no question was
The question then of the mental capacity of the testatrix and the alleged undue influence exerted over her, must be considered in relation to the time of the making of the will, Sept. 12, 1913. As to her mental condition at that time, there were some witnesses who testified that she was not fit to make a will, but few facts were disclosed in support of such conclusion. She had fits of melancholy, would get very angry, and on several occasions attempted violence to those in the house with her, but she transacted business, kept a bank account, wrote her own checks, borrowed money, went to the stores and purchased articles, and settled her mother’s estate, and according to the testimony of one of the doctors called by the caveator was rational to within a short time of her death, October, 1914. Another doctor testified that her capacity to make a will ceased from March, 1914, but prior to that time, the attacks of melancholy which unfitted her for business would last a few days and then she would be all right again. There was nothing to show that testatrix was not fully competent to make a will at the time she made it.
Proof as to undue influence also fails. Testatrix lived ■with a sister who was a beneficiary of the will, her brother-in-law borrowed money of her, did errands for her,
Had the facts as disclosed at the hearing been submitted to a jury, and the verdict been against the proponents the court would have been constrained to set it aside.
The decree of the Orphans’ Court is affirmed.