25 Pa. 453 | Pa. | 1855
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
This was an issue to try the validity of the will of Robert Clark, deceased. The executor is plaintiff, and three legatees named in the will are defendants. According to the allegation of the plaintiffs, gross fraud and imposition were practised on the testator by Andrew Clark, the principal devisee, but the question raised by the two bills of exception first sealed, has reference to the medium of proof resorted to by the defendants to establish the fraud. On an issue of devisavit vel non, where there are nine devisees and legatees under the will, may the three of them who are contesting the will on the record give evidence of the declarations and admissions of three of the remaining six devisees to impeach the will ? This is the precise question raised by the two first errors assigned. There is no doubt the admissions of
The offer in the third bill could operate only by way of revocation of the will, and for that purpose was wholly inadequate evidence. Since the enactment of the 13th section of our statute of wills of 1833, no will in writing concerning real estate can be repealed, nor any devise or direction therein altered except by a subsequent will or codicil, or by burning, cancelling, obliterating, or destroying the same by the testator himself, or by some one in his presence, by his express direction. The evidence offered did not come up to this statutory rule, and was therefore properly rejected. It was not aided by offering it in connexion with the evidence mentioned in the first two bills, for that, ás we have seen, was forbidden by both reason and authority.
The judgment is affirmed.