72 Md. 300 | Md. | 1890
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These are appeals from the Orphans’ Court of Alleghany County. A paper-writing, purporting to be the last will and testament of Margaret Steyer, was propounded for probate on the twenty-seventh day of August, 1889, and on the same day a caveat was filed by a sister of the decedent. The caveat alleges that Miss Steyer was of unsound mind, incapable of making a valid deed or contract, when the paper was executed ; that she did not know or understand its contents, and that the alleged will was procured by the undue influence of one John S. G-rove. Grove, the sole caveatee, answered under oath, and a mass of testimony was taken. The Orphans’ Court admitted all of the paper to probate except the residuary clause, and that it rejected. 'From the order so passed, both caveator and caveatee have appealed.
A careful examination of the record has convinced us that Margaret Steyer, though a woman of weak and feeble intellect, was still possessed of sufficient mental capacity to make a valid deed or contract. As a recital of the evidence bearing on this branch of the case cannot possibly serve any useful purpose, we pass, without further comment, to a consideration of the other questions raised by the caveat.
Undue influence is that degree of importunity which deprives a testator of his free agency, which is such as he is too weak to resist, and will render the instrument not his free and unconstrained act. It is closely allied to actual fraud; and like the latter, when resorted to by an adroit and crafty person, its presence often becomes exceedingly difficult to detect. Indeed, the more skilful and cunning the accused, and the more helpless and secluded the victim, the less plainly defined are the badges which usually denote it. Under such conditions, the results accomplished, the divergence of those results from the course which would ordinarily be looked for, the
Margaret Steyer died August the twenty-third, 1889. She was then a spinster between eighty-seven and eighty-eight years bf age. She had lived a very secluded and retired life, and was never seen away from the premises occupied by her in the town of Erostburg. She was illiterate, unable to read manuscript, or to write her name. In addition to this, she was a woman of feeble mind and easily influenced, particularly by any one who had gained her confidence. Many years ago she intrusted the management of her property, which then consisted of some real estate, and about seven thousand dollars of money and securities, to a Mr. Knode, and, upon his becoming too old to attend to the business any longer, she selected a Mr. Metzger. These gentlemen collected her rents and interest, made deposits thereof in bank to her credit, and every month drew by check' the sum of fifty dollars and gave that amount to her for her support. Her next of kin consisted of a sister, and the children of two deceased brothers and one deceased sister. None of these relations resided with her. She visited no one, and seems to have been visited by but very few persons.
Grove, the caveatee, is an educated man, forty-five years of age, and a lawyer by profession. He was a total
As the evidence depicts her, she was an easy subject for fraud or undire influence to prey upon. As it portrays him, he was mentally far superior to her, and he was morally capable of resorting, without scruple, to either of those devices to-procure her property. His opportunities to do this were most ample and unrestricted.
On March 23rd, 1885, he obtained from her a deed for the office projDerty he occupied. He paid no consideration for the property, and withheld the deed from record until April 13th, 1886. She signed the deed, Ave are told by some of the witnesses, without knoAving what it contained, because Grove told her to sign it ; and her business agent, Mr. Knode, was kept by Grove in total ignorance of this transaction for some considerable time.
The extent of his dominion over her is unmistakable, when the results accomplished by it are examined. Under the will of 1883 his daughter received a small legacy. Under the codicil of 1885 he appeared as a legatee
He selected none of the persons best acquainted with her to witness the will, and precisely the same witnesses were called on to attest the codicil of 1885 and the will of 1886. He knew that she attempted to transact no business whatever without consulting,her agent; that she never made her mark to a check without that agent’s knowledge and approval, even when the money was expended to pay Grove’s debts ; and he further knew that she was fully and completely under his dominion. The record discloses but two instances besides the codicil of 1885 and the will of 1886, where she appended her mark to any paper without the advice of her agent, and these were when Grove jirocured the deed conveying the office lot to himself, and when he induced her to become security on his promissory note for $100. He must have known that Knode would have objected to her signing a will cutting oil' her nearest kindred, and devoting nearly all her property to a dissipated stranger, and hence he purposely refrained from calling him in, and kept him in ignorance of its existence until her death made it impossible to revoke it. With the dominion he possessed over her, and the opportunities he had to exert it ; with his moral senses warped enough to use that dominion unduly for his own aggrandizement, a will under which he seeks to absorb nearly her whole estate cannot be other than the product of an undue influence which Courts of justice should promptly reprobate and condemn.
We have not overlooked the evidence adduced by the caveatee, and have given to it the weight to which it is
As the view we have taken is decisive of the case, the other question presented need not be considered.
That part of the order appealed from which refused probate of the residuary clause will be affirmed with costs, and the rest of the order will be reversed with costs, and the case will be remanded that the Orphans' Court may pass an order refusing to admit any part of the paper of January 12th, 1886, to probate.
Order affirmed in part, and reversed in part, and case remanded.