20 Or. 239 | Or. | 1891
— This was a proceeding instituted in the county court of Clackamas county by the contestant to have the order admitting to probate the will of her father, Cyrus W. Jones, deceased, vacated and annulled, and the will set aside and declared void. The will was executed on the 19th day of January, 1887, and the testator died on the 20th day of August, 1887, leaving several children, to whom he devised his property, with the sole exception of the contestant, who was excluded from its bounty. The proceeding resulted in a decree vacating the order, and setting aside the will as void, which was affirmed on appeal by a decree of the circuit court, and from which this appeal is taken. The theory upon which the will is alleged to be void is, that the testator, though conceded to be of sound mind upon all other subjects, was laboring under a delusion in relation to the legitimacy of his daughter, the contestant, causing him to entertain a violent hatred or insane aversion toward her, which rendered him wholly incapable of doing any legal act in which her interest was involved, and which so affected
The record discloses that the testator was married to his wife on the 10th day of May, 1835, in the state of Ohio; that a few years thereafter they emigrated to Missouri, where they continued to reside until 1861, when they emigrated to Oregon, having at this time a family of ten children, and settled in Marion county, on what is commonly known as “ Mission Bottom.” Here they continued to reside until 1865, when they started on a return trip to Missouri, taking with them two of their boys and three of their girls, one of whom is the contestant, and going by the way of California, where they stopped for a short time, and where the two hoys concluded to remain. The parents, with their three daughters, went on to Missouri, and after their arrival there his wife and the contestant, of their own choice, left him and went to Ohio, where they remained and never lived afterward with him. The testator returned to Oregon in 1867, with the other two girls. He bought another farm in Marion county; where he resided for a few years, and then purchased the farm in Clackamas county, to which he moved and where he was living when the will was executed and until his death. In 1872 he obtained a decree of divorce from his wife on the ground of desertion and cruel treatment.
The evidence shows that the testator was a man of sensitive disposition and of a nervous and jealous temperament; that early after his marriage, and especially while he and his wife resided in Missouri, he became suspicious of her chastity, and entertained the belief that she was intimate with a man who met her near a certain spring for adulterous purposes, and that two of the children, the contestant and Calvin Jones, were the offspring of such adulterous embraces. He also expressed the belief that another person in Oregon, while they lived together here, was on intimate terms with her, and at one time sought to chastise him for his supposed conduct. This belief, however, in the infidelity of his wife and the illegitimacy of two of
To avoid prolixity, we shall say our conviction from the evidence is, that his wife was a chaste woman and faithful to her marriage vows, and that the two children named were not the spurious product of her adulterous embraces with another man; but the fact remains, according to the testimony of those to whom he confided his domestic troubles, that he always furnished some grounds for his belief. He identified the party and place, and described the clandestine manner by which their improper meeting was effected. That such things could occur or have occurred under less probable circumstances, will not be denied. They are only rendered improbable in the present instance by the absolute confidence expressed in her marital fidelity by her acquaintances. While, therefore, we shall regard this suspicion or belief of her infidelity to her marriage bed with its attendant circumstances as unjust and unworthy of belief, we cannot disregard the fact that there was the opportunity for the parties to have met at the spring, and it might have occurred in reality for perfectly proper and innocent purposes, or without evil design or any concert of action, yet? to a man of the testator’s sensitive and jealous disposition, a trifling circumstance of this kind or a slightly imprudent act would incite his distrust and fill him with jealous suspicions. Whether there was any such visits to the spring near his residence, surreptitious or otherwise, by his wife and the suspected party while they lived in Missouri, there is
Stress and importance has been given to this phase of the case, and the evidence, as it is the main starting point of his domestic woes and infelicities, of his suspicions of his wife’s infidelity and the illegitimacy of his two children, the contestant and her brother Calvin Jones. It is true that while they lived in Missouri, and in Oregon between 1861 and 1865, their married lives were embittered by estrangements. Much of the time they refused to speak with each other or to conduct themselves in a way calculated to resume confidence and affection; and it was doubtless during some such period, when the cup of their domestic unhappiness was overflowing, that the testator was disposed to give vent to his feelings and indulge in unjust accusations against his wife’s chastity in the manner described by some of his relatives. It was about this time when the testator and his wife were estranged and not on speaking terms, although living together as husband and wife, that the conversation with Northcutt took place in which that witness represents him
The evidence shows that the testator and his other two daughters returned to Oregon and finally settled in Clackamas county and lived there until his death in 1887.. The subscribing witnesses to the execution of the will were old acquaintances living in the neighborhood, who had traded with him, hunted and traveled together, had visited at his house, attended school-meetings together, met at the stores and other places, and they concur in the opinion that his mind was sound and free from all disturbing influences when he executed his will; that he mentioned the portions to be given to each of the children and betrayed no bad humor or anything to indicate that he was not rational; that he understood his business and the property he possessed and how he wished to have it distributed. His physicians, who had known him for years and who attended him, also express the opinion that he was rational, knew what he was doing, and how he was doing it, and that he was competent at the time to execute a will, and that it was the product of his own free agency. They did not interrogate him in respect to his family matters; they never had had any conversation with him on this subject, and perhaps knew nothing about it, and only think from what they saw and observed that his mind was free from any disturbing influences, and that when he executed his will that he knew and understood what he was doing.
The evidence also shows that during the last twenty years, from the time he returned to Oregon until his death» he acquired property, was industrious and frugal, was a man of good judgment and business sagacity, attended to his own affairs, dealt extensively with numerous persons, took a proper interest in neighborhood matters, lived to a ripe old age (passed three score and ten), and with the children about him who had chosen to remain with him, made his will giving his property to them. His reasons for disposing
The evidence also shows that at the time mentioned he was as firm in the suspicion or belief that his son Calvin Jones was illegitimate as the contestant, and that he had indicated such belief by much more emphatic language than he had ever indulged of the contestant, yet he did not exclude him from his share of the estate, but provided for him the same as he did the other children, guided by the principle that those who had remained with him and helped to accumulate the property which he was entitled to dispose of were the proper recipients of his bount3r, and its application included his son Calvin, whom he had denounced in the days of his domestic troubles, and just before the
The important question for our decision now is, was his belief in the infidelity of his wife and the illegitimacy of the two children an insane delusion, and if so, was he so affected by such delusion at the time of the execution of his will as caused him to deprive the contestant of all benefit in his estate? This necessarily leads to the inquiry: What is an insane delusion?
Sir John Nicholl, in the celebrated case of Dew v. Clark, 3 Add. Eccl. 79, defined “insane delusions” in these words: “ Wherever the patient once conceives something extravagant to exist, which still has no existence whatever but in his own heated imagination, and wherever at the same time,
Tested by these definitions, can it be said, upon the facts as disclosed by this record, that the testator was beset with an insane delusion in respect to the legitimacy of the contestant and her brother? The circumstances which he relates, and upon which his belief is founded, fix the place, identify the person and the manner of the improper meeting, and there is no evidence to show, nor is there any attempt to deny, that there was such a place or person or that such a meeting might not have occurred, only that the adulterous purpose which he ascribed and professed to believe to be the object of such meeting was so absolutely inconsistent with her known character for chastity as to be utterly unworthy of belief and only to be accounted for in him upon the theory of an unnatural dislike or aversion which amounted to an insane delusion. The evidence in contradiction of his belief proceeds on the assumption that there may have been such a place and man and meeting; and if so, her known character for chastity, her every-day walk and life, render it impossible that it could have occurred for the foul purposes which he imputes, or otherwise than accidentally and without concert or evil design in thought or deed. But these facts, however falsely or unjustly he may have reasoned from them, or however absurd his conclusions, as applied to the wife and contestant impugned by them, nevertheless furnished the evidence which inspired his suspicions and the ground upon which his belief was founded. It is conceded that the conclusions he drew from the facts are wholly unwarranted and without any justification, indicating at least an unrelenting jealous disposition; but unjust and absurd as they may be, they were not the pure creations of a perverted imagination, without any foundation in reality. Delusions are conceptions that originate spontaneously in the mind without evidence of any kind to support them, and can be accounted for on no reasonable hypothesis. The
To support the contention for the contestant, the belief or suspicion the testator entertained of his wife’s infidelity and the illegitimacy of the children to be an insane delusion, must have been wholly without foundation in reality, and the mere figment of his perverted imagination. But the evidence discloses that it was formed on an apparent cause, leading on his part to a view of his wife’s conduct, which we have admitted was erroneous, unjust and unnatural, yet this only shows an unfortunate error of judgment or a want of reasoning power, but not an absolute want of intellect upon the subject. The conclusion which he drew from the facts was untenable and erroneous, and showed that he formed a bad judgment upon an insufficient state of facts, but does not show that his conclusion or belief was formed without any foundation in fact whatever.
But even if we assume that his belief was utterly groundless and without any cause, actual or apparent, to justify it, would that authorize us, in view of the circumstances of this cause, to declare the testator was the victim of an insane delusion? In the Will of Cole, 49 Wis. 181, Lyon, J., said; “It must be conceded that the belief of the deceased in respect to the unchastity of his wife, persisted in as it was without evidence to support it, and against all reasonable probabilities of its truth, looks very much like insane delusions. Yet it is not necessarily so. Observation teaches us that there is a very large class of people, whose sanity is undoubted, who are unduly jealous or suspicious of others, and especially of those closely connected with them, and
Nor is it enough that a delusion, may have existed, but its connection with the will must be made manifest and shown to have influenced its provisions before the will can be set aside and declared void.
Nor must it be entirely overlooked in considering this point, that the period of time when the principal witnesses express the opinion that he was the victim of an insane delusion about the chastity of his wife, relates to conduct and conversation and circumstances that occurred many years ago; that he was divorced from his wife in 1872, and that in the year succeeding little or nothing of real importance is ever heard of his suspicions, and when he did speak of her or the contestant in relation to the matter in hand it was with composure or -without insinuations against her marital integrity or the legitimacy of the children.
It is necessary, therefore, to show not only that he was the subject of a delusion, an insane hatred or aversion to his daughter, but that it was present when he executed his will, and influenced him in the making of it and in excluding her from its benefits. Upon this point the evidence has already been detailed, and it will be sufficient to briefly advert to it to show that those who were present at the execution of the will, including the subscribing witnesses and his physicians, all concur in the opinion that he was in the possession of all his faculties and free from any mental disturbance impairing his free agency; that he understood
Where a delusion exists, and it is shown to have had an influence on the testamentary disposition of the property, as in Dew v. Clark, supra, consisting of an aversion to kindred, it is usually accompanied “with other signs,” says Sir John Hannen, “which may be relied on to assist us in forming an opinion on that point.” In the'case at bar we look in vain for them; but in that case it was the extraordinary importance the testator attached to medical electricity as a means
Nor can we find any case upon facts analagous to these in which it has been held fatal to the validity of the will. In a recent case (Barbo v. Rider, 67 Wis. 598) in which it was held that the appellant was the victim of an insane delusion and mentally incompetent to care for himself or his estate, the evidence showed that his health had been impaired by excessive drinking; that after living happily with his wife for more than-twenty years, suddenly and without cause he conceived the idea she had been untrue to him; that she submitted her person to the criminal embraces of a number of men, some of whom she scarcely knew, and that some of these men had begotten children upon her; that he charged her wdth it and repeated it to all who would listen to him; wrote an incoherent and indecent letter on the subject; became morose and sullen; ceased to take any interest in his family or business, and wandered aimlessly into the fields; that he begged for a division of the property, refused to take medicine and believed that his friends were trying to poison him. As the court said: “No argument is required tó prove that such a change in the nature and conduct of Barbo, such unreasonable and unfounded hallucinations respecting the chastity of his wife and his causeless hostility to his family which yield to no reason or persuasion, are sufficient evidence that he is the unfortunate victim of insane delusion.” These cases illustrate delusions, but they are essentially different from the case under consideration. While it seems harsh and cruel, so counter to all the feelings of our nature, that a parent should disinherit one of his children and devise his property to the others, or to cut
The law being so, upon the facts as disclosed by this record, we must give it as our judgment that the will of the testator, sought to be impeached by this proceeding, is valid, and not the product of an insane delusion; and in conclusion, it is perhaps due to say, that whatever suspicions or belief the testator entertained of his wife’s infidelity are refuted by this record; that no wife or mother could be guilty of dishonoring the bed of her husband and bastardizing her children, whose reputation for chastity and the domestic virtues was attested by so many respectable witnesses and contradicted by none.
The decree must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.