11 Mills Surr. 295 | N.Y. Sur. Ct. | 1913
When this cause was heard before at the chambers of this court (80 Misc. Rep. 17; 141 N. Y. Supp. 784) it was held that the motion to consolidate the several proceedings for the probate of different paper writings, purporting to be the last will and testament of John C. Martin, deceased, was premature, and that such motion should be brought on before the surrogate presiding at the trial term of this court. When the matters accordingly came on again at the trial term, the surrogate decided that the later paper should be first proceeded on and the other reserved, as in the event that the later paper was not established as a testamentary script, duly executed under the appropriate Statute of Wills, the devisees,
This present proceeding is one for the probate of the paper writing, dated 31st of July, 1912, and alleged to be the last will and testament of John C. Martin, deceased, executed in due form of law. The allegations or objections interposed to the probate state that the paper writing is not such last will and testament, and that on the date it purports to be executed John C. Martin lacked testamentary capacity and was unlawfully restrained and influenced in and about the testamentary act of execution. The testimony produced by the parties on the trial was unusually extended, and the cause has been presented with the utmost precision, ■ learning and professional insistence ■—the briefs alone number some 650 pages—and yet the issue is a narrow one. The matter might be very briefly decided, were it not for the fact that tradition and custom exact from the official presiding in courts of this character a somewhat extended review of the evidence, and the reasons for his application of legal principles, in order that the tribunals charged with the ultimate solution may be the more easily and better informed of the scope and incidents of the matter.
John C. Martin, the alleged testator, was a native of Pennsylvania, but at the time of his death he was a resident of this county of New York. He had in' the course of his business career been successful in coal mining ventures at Portage, in his native state, and at the time of his death had accumulated an estate conceded to be upward of $750,000. Mr. Martin died on the 3d of September, 1912, in about the sixty-seventh or eighth year of his age. He was then a widower, and without
The paper now here for probate was executed at Portsmouth, in the state of New Hampshire, on the 31st day of July, 1912. Portsmouth was not Mr. Martin’s home. It appears that he had left Yonkers in this state, where he was on a visit to his sister, on July 5,1912, intending to stop at the Hotel Champernowne at Kittery Point, on the coast of Maine. He arrived there on the sixth day of July. It was while he was summering on this part of the Maine coast, that the Portsmouth will, now offered for probate, came into existence. Portsmouth is within easy distance of Kittery Point, and Mr. Martin, during July, 1912, frequently visited Portsmouth.
In the summer of 1910, Mr. Martin had been out of his mind, and for a time was actually confined and under medical restraint of some kind. It is proved by contestants that from July to October, 1911, a similar mental malady, whatever it was, recurred, as it did beyond all controversy in some part of the summer of 1912. Whether the last recurrence was before or after the making of the paper writing of 1912 is the great question. That during several of these attacks Mr. Martin was insane is not really disputed in this cause, and it cannot be from the evidence. But it is claimed by proponents, in substance, that the mental malady which affected Mr. Martin was of a periodic or acute kind, and that in the intervals between his acute attacks Mr. Martin was possessed of a sound and disposing mind. Upon this issue- it is incumbent on proponent to •establish with particularity that testamentary capacity which is always involved in the legal act of testamentation. Matter of Will of Gedney, 142 N. Y. Supp. 157. In this particular case the ordinary presumption of sanity has little place for precise application, as it is demonstrated that at times in his life Mr. Martin was manifestly not possessed of a sane mind.
The medical evidence adduced on both sides discloses that
Before proceeding more definitely to a consideration of the facts established in this cause, I shall review briefly the tests which the law prescribes for legal competency or sanity. The legal test of sanity or competency—to some extent only convertible terms—is that the acts and conduct of the person whose sanity is under investigation shall correspond with normal acts and conduct. This does not mean, as was wisely held long ago by that very distinguished probate judge Sir H. Jenner Fust, in Mudway v. Croft, 2 Notes Cas. in Ecc. Cts. 438, that such acts and conduct shall correspond with those of the average normal man, for no such man exists, but that the acts and conduct shown shall correspond with the acts and conduct of the subject himself at the time when he is proved or conceded to have been in health and of sound mind. Eccentricities, bad manners and grotesque conduct, generally, are not evidence of insanity if they are normal to the man himself. An outrageously eccentric man may make a very good will. It is because of the legal tests indicated that the law allows proof of acts and conduct of a testator in great detail. In this cause before me, the proofs of the acts and conduct of Mr. Martin are most voluminous and detailed. Another legal test of insanity is this: Is the testator shown to react to the common facts and events of his life ? Matter of Will of Gedney, 142 N. Y. Supp. 157, 175. These are very simple and practical tests of mental capacity. I have had occasion to observe before in other probate causes, where an allegation of incompetency or want of legal capacity was interposed, that the legal tests of insanity are simpler than the medical tests (Matter of Schmidt’s Will, 139 N. Y. Supp. 464, 474, 483), and the reason for this is that, while mental malady may be pronounced enough to need curative treatment, it may not be pronounced enough to denote legal incapacity.
Prior to the year 1910, Mr. Martin, when in health, is shown to have been a very industrious and excellent man of business. In his private life he was kindly and philanthropic, interested greatly in the Presbyterian church and in works of charity and in the religious education of the colored people. That Mr. Martin was somewhat boastful of his achievements in the business world and in a harmless way fond of referring to them is perhaps disclosed by the evidence. But this is not an uncommon characteristic of very sane men who owe their success to their own efforts. That Mr. Martin was possessed of a very moderate education is shown by his correspondence in evidence. But I am not satisfied that prior to 1910 the particular foibles, disclosed by the testimony, are of any legal importance to the real issue in this cause. Counsel for proponent have very skilfully and industriously massed much material bearing on Mr. Martin’s early life, with a view to show that in times of his ill health and demonstrated mental maladies there
In the summer of 1910 while at Atlantic City Mr. Martin had what proponent’s leading counsel- himself terms “ a sudden attack of acute mania.” That in the course of the summer of 1910 Mr. Martin did the most extraordinary things; that his conduct at times was violent and that he was mentally irresponsible is firmly established by the evidence. It is quite unnecessary for me to attempt to summarize the incidents and facts which establish this conclusion. On or about August 5, 1910, his friends took Mr. Martin to Dr. Millspaugh’s Sanatorium in Paterson, New Jersey, where he was confined until the fourth of September following, when he was transported to Dr. Packer’s Sanatorium at Riverdale, in New York. There he remained until the 82d of September, 1910. That during the greater part of this time Mr. Martin was actually insane and incompetent to testaméntate I am convinced from the evidence.
That during the sojourn of Mr. Martin in Europe in 1911 his extravagant actions and extraordinary conduct point at least to a recurrence of the pronounced disorder of 1910 I am satisfied by the proofs now before me. It would be impossible from the evidence on this point to come to any other conclusion.
After July 6, 1912, until he was taken away to an asylum, or sanatorium, Mr. Martin was at the summer hotel at Kittery Point. The various inmates of the hotel have given in great detail their evidence of what he did and said while there. Most of these witnesses were, however, before this summer strangers to Mr. Martin, and their opinions have not the fullest weight. Certainly Mr. Martin’s conduct between July 6 and 31, 1912, was in many respects very peculiar and lacking in good taste. Whether it bears evidence of the incapacity which certainly soon followed is another question. The proponents introduced circumstantial evidence which they thought tended to break the 'force of the evidence of insanity and to show that Mr. Martin was at this time sufficiently under the influence of liquor, to enable me to infer that the eccentricities and bad manners testified to may have been occasioned by drink and were not due to any mental impairment. But as Mr. Martin was shown to be always a temperate man and no witness at any time ever saw him drink to excess or actually under the influence of liquor, I cannot infer from such circumstantial evidence alone that the rather gross eccentricities and conduct of Mr. Martin testified to by the witnesses were due solely to a bare possibility of drink. These particular incidents of eccentricity and folly are, however, most important according as they tend to corroborate or
The circumstances and occasion of an act of testamentation are the turning point of an issue of this kind. A death-bed will, hurriedly concocted, should always be scrutinized in courts of this character; so a sudden will of persons concededly subject to mental paroxysms, if made when away from home and among total strangers, is not on the plane of a will executed at home in the presence of well-known witnesses and a respectable and trusted family or neighboring lawyer who has possessed for years the acquaintance and confidence of the testator. A will executed suddenly and for no reason away from home, if drawn
The will now offered for probate, it will be observed, makes the lawyer who drew it one of its executors, and prima facie entitles him to the custody of a very large estate. It is under the circumstances incumbent on the executor as proponent to establish in this proceeding by the clearest proofs that the testator was, at the time he made the paper propounded, in every way capable of making it. To entitle the paper to probate there must be no doubt on that score. The proponent contends that testator’s final attack of mania was acute and began not before August 8, 1912, or some eight days after the making of the will in question. On August eighth, it is clear from the proofs, Mr. Martin manifested openly at a formal public meeting an utter want of mental balance. That his mind was then permanently unseated was testified to by several of the medical experts, and during this continued attack he died. The real question is, Was Mr. Martin of sound and disposing mind eight
Now, what are the facts as to August seventh, the very day before the practically conceded mental breakdown of Mr. Martin? The sayings and doings of Mr. Martin on August seventh, and even earlier in August, have been chronicled by the witnesses. His conduct at the Greenacre Inn, for example, and his declarations on the date mentioned, certainly are so abnormal as to tend at least to confirm the opinion of the expert, Dr. Pou, who placed the beginning of Mr. Martin’s last mental collapse as of a date anterior to the making of the will of July thirty-first. If contestants have raised a doubt as to the sanity of Mr. Martin on the seventh of August, the day before the more marked breakdown, how far back does the influence of this doubt extend, and particularly does it extend to a date prior to the 31st of July, 1912? This is an important consideration for the surrogate.
On the part of proponent a number of witnesses residing in and about Portsmouth testified, as lay witnesses may do, to the apparent rationality of Mr. Martin about the time of the act of testamentation. These witnesses were all persons of intelligence and the highest respectability. But their acquaintance with Mr. Martin was very sudden and brief. It is in evidence that Mr. Martin’s manner at almost all times was genial, democratic and engaging. During his brief stay Mr. Martin professed a rather too exuberant interest in the general prosperity of Portsmouth, and as according to himself and in point of fact he was rich, generous, charitably disposed and able to
It has been intimated before, that from the medical evidence the manifestations of manic depressive insanity are very subtle and to some extent indefinable. Its subject may be in the incipient stages of the disease before lay witnesses perceive it. Postulating this, let us proceed to an examination of the evidence bearing directly on the Portsmouth will. Mr. Martin
If valid this paper will carry to the executor the custody, control and possession of a large estate, and the right to charge the estate with the vast expenses incurred in this litigation. In law an executor has been called “ eadem persona ” as the testator, because the clothing and fortune of the testator devolve on the executor for all juridical purposes. An executorship is always a position of trust and confidence and one I think avoided generally by most men of the highest responsibility, unless some affectionate or family relationship peremptorily dictates an acceptance to be a duty.
The attesting witnesses to the paper propounded were all strangers to Mr. Martin and residents of Portsmouth. One of them, Miss Emily Stavers, was employed as a stenographer in the law office of Colonel Bartlett. The second witness. Miss Helen M. Quinn, pursued a like occupation in the office of another lawyer of Portsmouth. The third attesting witness was the Portsmouth dentist, who, as stated, had on several prior occasions attended Mr. Martin in the dental rooms up the stairway from Colonel Bartlett’s office. Miss Stavers had never seen Mr. Martin before July 39,1913, and Miss Quinn had never met him before the very moment of the assembling for the execution of the will. Their opportunities of forming an opinion upon Mr. Martin’s capacity to make a will were, therefore, most
If we cannot rely in this case on the testimony of the attesting witnesses concerning the sanity and competency of Mr. John C. Martin on the 31st of July, 1913, the'evidence of that
As I cannot find from the evidence of the lay witnesses any preponderance of proof in favor of proponent on the main issue, let us turn next to the medical evidence in the cause, premising there are two kinds of medical testimony in the record. There is the testimony of physicians who saw personally and actually examined and treated professionally Mr. Martin for disease of the brain, and there is the evidence of one medical gentleman who testifies not from his observation of Mr. Martin, but to an opinion, based on a hypothesis put to him. The hypothetical question in this cause seemed to me to be well framed. But I exercised the prerogative of a trial judge in re
In this state, in any event, physicians who have examined one
But there is another difficulty with proponent’s case on the paper. “ Manic depressive insanity,” as I judge from the medical evidence, may eclipse reason altogether, or it may impair it so as to incapacitate its victim at times only. It will be perceived that intermittent or partial insanity is always a difficult case for the law to deal with, for it may or may not so extensively impair the mind as to legally incapacitate one partially insane, except perhaps during periods of actual frenzy or mania. The varying character of manic depressive insanity accounts, no doubt, for some of the discrepancies apparent in
In countries where the civil law obtains it is claimed that, there is observable a greater refinement than is common with us in cases involving legal capacity. It is claimed in civil law countries that the decisions in common law countries are on the subject of legal capacity “ variant and discordant,” and I fear it is so.' In civil law countries it is generally held that the proof of legal capacity in cases of partial insanity is extremely difficult, and that when lucid intervals have to be computed by days and hours courts should be strongly inclined on that ground alone to disbelieve in the restoration of the patient to a state of disposing capacity. In common law countries this is nowhere so clearly stated. As this is the first case, I think, in this state on a will made by one proven to be afflicted with the intermittent type of insanity, now known as “ manic depressive insanity,” there is in existence no authority for this very case, and when that is the fact the civil law rule becomes, in this
But I will not rest my judgment in this cause on a rule taken from the civilians. There is a well established principle of that probate law which is part of the common law of this state, and this principle I think is determinative here. I refer to the rule requiring a proponent of a will to satisfy the conscience of a probate court that the will he propounds is the will of a free and capable testator. If proponent fail so to satisfy the conscience of the court, the court may then pronounce against the will. This was a well established canon of the probate law, which, as a part of the common law, became the fundamental law of this state by constitutional reservation, and I have never been able to put my hand on an express and clearly pronounced adjudication in this state changing this old and established principle of testamentary law. Indeed, I find the principle tacitly recognized in cases of late authority in this jurisdiction. Howland v. Taylor, 53 N. Y. 627; Rollwagen v. Rollwagen, 63 id. 517; Matter of Cottrell, 95 id. 336. It has been said by a probate judge of recognized learning that section 2622, Code of Civil Procedure, was intended to confirm the very principle last indicated (Cooper v. Benedict, 3 Dem. 136), and it may be so. I will assume that it is. While I have never been sure in my own mind that section 2622 of the Code of Civil Procedure was in its .origin entitled to such an extensive interpretation as that accorded it, I have been quite willing to follow the decision cited in the interest of a definite jurisprudence. Matter of Van Den Heuvel’s Will, 76 Misc. Rep. 137. It is highly essential in this state that our probate law should be in accord, if possible, with the general law and consensus of Christendom on the same general propositions of probate law. Probate law is a universal law, as a probate is a proceeding m rem. It is not in the interest of the public that plausible local deviations should be substituted for ancient and established
It must be conceded, I think, that there is a line of adjudications in this state which tend to hold that after the factum of will is established by the attesting witnesses the burden of proof on the whole case is on contestants, and that all the surrogate has then to do in a probate cause is to weigh the evidence, and if the contestants’ proofs do not weigh more than the proponents’ the decree of probate must issue as of course. This line of adjudications is, I think, inconsistent with such adjudications as those before cited in this opinion, and I venture to believe such adjudications as those first mentioned do not settle the law adversely to what I have before stated to be the rule in probate jurisdictions controlled by the common law. In other words, the decisions referred to do not hold, that because there is on the whole case doubt on the testator’s capacity to testaméntate the surrogate must nevertheless admit a will to probate if the attesting witnesses have testified to the sanity and competency of the testator at the moment of executing the will. "That express point I have never yet seen stated so definitely in our reports as to make it binding on me in this cause. It is a great pity that there is any vagueness of doctrine on points so essential to the public security. As the great Lord Hardwicke well said, “ Misera est sermtus ubi jus vagum.”
In view of the almost uncontroverted expert testimony that Mr. Martin was insane on the 31st of July, 1913, a condition of the proofs is presented which makes me not satisfied (giving due weight to proponent’s proofs to the contrary) that Mr. Martin was on the 31st of July, 1913, of competent capacity to make a will. For this reason, and I hold this reason to be sufficient in probate law (Matter of Van Ness Will, 78 Misc. Rep. 592; Matter of Jacobs Will, 76 id. 394; Matter of Van Den Heuvel’s Will, id. 137), probate of the paper propounded is refused.
Decreed accordingly.