51 So. 130 | Miss. | 1909
delivered the opinion of the court.
This case is here for the second time. It is a contest over a ■will, and on both trials in the court below the jury have found for the contestants, and the argument now made is to secure a reversal because the evidence is not sufficient to show that undue influence was used in the procurement of this will.
In the case of Blackman v. Edsall, 17 Colo. 429, 68 Pac. 792, a recent well-considered case, the court said: “The chief
In another very recent case, Meier v. Buchter, 197 Mo. 68, 94 S. W. 883, 6 L. R. A. (N. S.) 202, the-facts were, there was an old man in failing health cherishing affection for all his children, especially an afflicted daughter. He lived, however, with another daughter, Mrs. Buchter. It appears that from the time that Mrs. Buchter entered the household the-testator cooled in his regard for his afflicted daughter, and this daughter was finally sent away. There was a prior will, which had disappeared. There was no direct proof of undue influence exerted especially upon the making of the will. The-whole case is strikingly like the case at' bar in many of its important facts. The trial court gave a peremptory instruction-in favor of the will; but the supreme court held that the mere fact of the will being unnatural in its provisions, coupled with other, though slight, evidences of undue influence, was suffi-ciént to take the case to the jury. The court said: “The-courts, too, recognize the fact that testamentary disposition often comes only in the evening of life, and that idiosyncrasies,, foolish words, odd notions, and acts ‘sounding to folly’ in-aged people may be so combed together from far and near, and scheduled and paraded, as somewhat to show unsoundness of mind, and yet, fairly considered in the light of everyday experience, do not establish that infirmity. However, when all this has been said, it still remains that, as long as kindness is esteemed a virtue by civilized people, their laws can neither be interpreted as .essentially unkind, nor are they of such a sour complexion and so-deadly cold in their process as to eliminate all human warmth of sentiment and all moral duty. Accordingly it is the sole doctrine of the law that, while a testator has the abstract power of disposing of his estate by will according" to his settled convictions or caprice, yet a will, producing re-
In the case of King v. Rowan, 82 Miss. 1, 34 South. 325, this court declared that where the facts in a case are voluminous, and the different facts testified to vary greatly in the statement of them by the witnesses, and even when no member of the court would find as the jury did, the court should yet not exercise the delicate and difficult function of declaring the verdict *of the jury manifestly wrong, and that such a declaration should be made only in those rare cases where the evidence shows it to be wrong, most convincingly and indubitably. See, also, the case of Walls v. Walls, 99 S. W. 969, 30 Ky. Law Rep. 948, where the rule in cases of undue influence is admirably stated.
In 1 Bedfield on Wills, 516, it is said, with respect to the unnatural provisions in a will: “Where the will is unreason
Under these well-settled rules, we cannot '.possibly say that the verdict in this case is manifestly wrong. Two juries, under proper instructions from the court, have found for the contestants, and the judgment is affirmed.