127 Iowa 646 | Iowa | 1905
So far as the questions and answers related to the time of making the will, or to a time so closely approximating thereto as to' amount to the same thing, there was error in receiving the testimony, for the reason that the ruling permitted the witness to testify, in effect, that the testator was capable of making the will in question, and such testimony is incompetent under the rule of our own decisions and by the weight of authority. Pelamourges v. Clark, 9 Iowa, 1. But other questions of the same kind related to the testator’s capacity at a time prior to the execution of the will, and the testimony so elicited, we think, was competent. Personal acquaintance, contact, and observation disclose the mental characteristics of persons, and from this association we form jridgments as to the mental capacity of those with whom we come into such close relationship. A person may be entirely sound mentally on all subjects save one, and as to that particular subject his mind may be so diseased as to render it impossible to say that he is of sound mind. If a witness who is called t'o testify as to mental capacity is confined to the bare statement or conclusion that- the person was either sane or insane, the answer is practically valueless as evidence of his capacity to do a certain act. But if the witness may
A great many other alleged errors are argued, but as none of them appear to be of consequence, and as tbe same questions are not likely to arise on another trial of the case, we need not notice them further than .to -say that we find no reversible error, unless it be in the cross-examination of Mrs. Madison as to a letter written by her, and in the attempted impeachment of Mrs. Murphy without first having laid a proper foundation therefor.
Nor the errors discussed the judgment must be reversed. The motion to tax the costs of the appellee’s abstract to them is sustained, and the motion to tax a part of the appellants’ abstract to them is sustained to the extent of taxing the cost of one-fifth thereof to the appellants.— Reversed.