In Re Haness
Samuel Haness was killed in an accident January 9th, 1924. His will, dated February 16th, 1922, was admitted to probate by the surrogate of Morris county, January 28th, 1924. He left him surviving seven children, all of full age except the youngest, a son aged nineteen years, and a wife. He was married in 1891 and had lived with his wife and children in Brooklyn up to September, 1916, when, because of serious family quarrels, dating back at least a year, he left
The only evidence as to undue influence comes from two witnesses for the apрellant below. One, Barney Drachlis, testifies that the testator told him that his brothers made him make a new will, and the other, Michael E. Haness, testator‘s son, testified that the testator told him that at the time he made his will the testator‘s brothers told the testator that testator‘s wife and children were crazy, and asked testator why he should leave his property to his wife and children. Both brothers denied influencing the tеstator to make the will, and further, that they were not aware that the testator had made a will in their favor. One brother testified that the testator once told him that the two brothers were the only persons he had who would take care of his business after he was gone. If testimony of declarations made by a testator at least a year after he had executed his will is admissible as tending to show unduе influence, it should be noted that the testator always had control of his will, and if, at the time he is alleged to have made the declarations, he believed his
An attempt was made to prove that the testator had executed a subsequent will which was found and concealed by the testator‘s brothers. The day after the testator was killed the two brothers came to Dover, and, after viewing the body, visited the rooms occupied by the testator at Dover. A son of the testator testified that immediately after that visit he saw one of the brothers take a large envelope with a red seal on its back from а handbag owned by the testator, but the witness did not know what the envelope contained. The further
The remaining ground for appeal from the probate of the will was that the testator was of unsound mind аnd incapable of disposing of his estate by will. The testator was a dry-goods salesman for many years — I gather that he was a drummer — and he continued to attend to his business up to the time he was killed. His sample case was found with his body. Besides this business, he speculated in real estate and had bought four pieces of real estate after he separated from his wife and prior to the execution of his will, and he bought three other parcels of real estate after the execution of his will. He was shrewd enough to have a corporation formed to hold title to his real estate, undoubtedly to avoid trouble over his wife‘s dower. Eleven disinterested witnesses, in addition to his two brothers, testified for the proponents. They had known the testator prior to and after the execution оf his will, and had talked with him on general business conditions, of the topics of the day and of his family, and all describe him as a normal man, showing no evidence of any mental disturbance, or even bad temper. Witnesses for the appellant below described him as an excitable man, of quick and violent temper, easily enraged without cause, but the only concrete evidence of any mentаl trouble outside of bad temper and epithets applied to his wife and family comes from three witnesses. Eva Leopold, who had known him nine years and had kept house for him several years up to October, 1922, testified
Our courts guard the right of testamentary disposition jealously. They hold that this right may be exercised by a person of very moderate capacity. He must have a sound and disposing mind and memory, but his memory may be very imperfect; he may not be able at all times to recollect names, the persons or the families of those with whom he has been intimately acquainted; he may at times ask idle questions and repeat those which have been asked and answered; he may not have sufficient strength of memory and
Up to this point in the discussion of the case, the testimony clearly shows that the testator, at the time he executed his will, had ample testatmentary capacity, and that it was the free and unconstrained product of his mind. But the court below found that the testator was suffering from a delusion that his wife and children were crazy and were murderers, and, because of such delusion, he was incapable of making a valid will. I assume the court meant that, because of such delusion, the testator was unable to comprehend his wife and children as natural objects of his bounty, or to appreciate the duty which should have recommended them for his consideration. It is only a delusion or conception which springs up spontaneously in the mind of a testator, and is not the result of extrinsic evidence of any kind, that can be regarded as furnishing evidence that his mind is diseased or unsound. It is not required of a testator that he shall, in fact, correctly ascertain the legal status of each person who stands in natural relation to him. In the exercise of reason he may move on premises established by false or insufficient evidence, or by mistake, and thus determine to exclude from his bounty those whom, but for his error, he would have recognized. The test is his ability to exercise reason and reach a rational conclusion,
Back as far as January, 1916 (and probably further), there was trouble between the testator and his wife, and the children seem to have sided with their mother. Their then troubles resulted in the testator entering into a written agreement for the support of his wife and children. He left her in September, 1916, and аbout that time he commenced suit against his wife to compel her to convey to him certain property in Brooklyn, title to which was then in her name, but which he claimed was his. In August, 1917, the husband and wife entered into another written agreement by which they agreed to live separate for the remainder of their lives, and to convey the Brooklyn property to the wife and another person as trustees, to hold for the benefit of the wife and the children, and, after the death of the wife, to convey said property to the children. In addition to the income they were to receive from the property, the testator agreed to pay his wife a monthly sum for the support of herself and children. When speaking of his wife on subsequent occasions, he maintained that the blame for his family troubles was wholly hers; that her conduct toward him and her treatment of him made it impossible for him to live with her; that his children, or some of them, had ill-treated him, and that when he gave to them the Brooklyn property (which apparently was all the real estate he then owned) they had taken from him all he had, and it was because of the treatment that he felt he had received at their hands, he ocсasionally called them crazy and murderers, and said they had robbed him.
It is conceded that they were not crazy or murderers. In his marital troubles the testator evidently believed himself wholly blameless and his wife entirely wrong, and the treatment he received from her may, to his mind, have been so unjust and her part in their quarrels may, in his opinion,
He did not always speak of his wife and the children as crazy and murderers. Witnesses for the proponents say that he spoke of his wife and children, and of his trouble with them, without calling them names, and his ill-feeling toward his children seems to have abated somewhat, because he visited them and some of them visited him, but his feeling towards his wife never changed. I do nоt believe that the testator actually thought his wife and children were crazy or murderers, but that he used these word as epithets to indicate his dislike or hatred for them. The testimony for the appellant below describes him as an excitable man, of hasty and violent temper, and it appears that he usually made use of these epithets when talk concerning his wife and children aroused him to anger. When he went to his attorney to have his will drawn, he told the attorney of his family troubles, and said that he had not found it possible to live with his wife because of the trouble she created; that she had taken every dollar he had and that he had turned everything he had over to her and his family, and that he did not want his wife and children to have any part of his
The decree of the Morris county orphans court will be reversed.