46 A.2d 97 | Md. | 1946
On the 19th day of December, 1944, the Orphans' Court of Baltimore City admitted to probate a paper-writing dated the 10th day of May, 1944, purporting to be the last will and testament of Elizabeth Riggs Howard, deceased, and granted letters testamentary to The Safe Deposit Trust Company, as executor. She left a sister and three brothers as her next of kin, who were provided for in the will. They filed in said court a petition and caveat to said paper-writing, in which they charged that said paper-writing was not the last will and testament of the decedent and that she died intestate. The petition and caveate further alleged lack of the following: A. proper execution of the alleged will and testament; B. a sound and disposing mind; C. knowledge of the contents of the alleged will and testament. The petition and caveat then charged: D. "That the said Elizabeth Riggs Howard, at the time of the alleged execution by her of said alleged Last Will and Testament, was so weakened and enfeebled and incapacitated by extreme age, and by illness and debilitation of both mind and body, that she was prevented from understanding, and did not understand, the contents of said alleged Last Will and Testament"; E. that said last will and testament was procured by undue influence practiced upon said Elizabeth Riggs Howard and constraining her will therein.
The answer of the executor and caveatee admits that caveators are the next of kin of the testatrix, asserts *57 that the paper-writing dated the 10th of May, 1944, is in fact the last will and testament of Elizabeth Riggs Howard, deceased, and that she did not die intestate; denies the allegations in paragraphs A., B., C., and E. of the petition and caveat; and as to paragraph D. says: "that the said Elizabeth Riggs Howard at the time of the execution of said Last Will and Testament was not too weakened and enfeebled and incapacitated by extreme age, and by illness and debilitation of both mind and body or by any other reason that she was prevented from understanding and, therefore, did not understand the contents of said Last Will and Testament. On the contrary this Respondent alleges that she was entirely competent both mentally and physically to execute such instrument."
To this answer replication was filed. Thereafter caveators filed a petition for issues to be sent by the Orphans' Court to a court of law for trial by jury, and prayed that five issues be submitted, the fourth issue thereof being as follows, to wit: "Was the said Elizabeth Riggs Howard, at the time of the alleged execution by her of said paper-writing dated May 10, 1944, purporting to be the Last Will and Testament of said Elizabeth Riggs Howard, so weakened and enfeebled and incapacitated by extreme age and by illness and debilitation of both mind and body, that she was prevented from understanding, and did not understand, the contents of said paper-writing purporting to be her Last Will and Testament?" To this petition caveatee replied and objected to certain issues proposed by caveators, and the Orphans' Court thereafter, on the 9th day of June, 1944, sustained caveatee's objection to the fourth issue and sent issues to the Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore City to be tried and determined by a jury. The issues, presented in the usual and standard form were: 1. due execution of the will; 2. mental capacity; 3. knowledge of the alleged will at the time of its execution; 4. undue influence. These issues were not objected to by the caveators *58 and this appeal is from the order of the Orphans' Court refusing the proposed fourth issue of the caveators.
It was said in Gross v. Burneston,
It is asserted by appellants, referring to their proposed fourth issue: "The parties themselves, by their own pleadings, have positively declared and raised this question as a definite and categorical issue between them." With this we do not agree. The answer of the executor to the petition and caveat denied that Elizabeth Riggs Howard, at the time she executed the alleged last will and testament, was too weakened and enfeebled and incapacitated by extreme age or illness and debilitation of both mind and body, or for any other reason, prevented from understanding the contents of said alleged last will and testament, but on the contrary asserts that the testatrix was entirely competent both mentally and physically to execute said instrument. A reading of the proposed fourth issue would cause one to think that its purpose was to raise the question of the mental capacity of the testatrix at the time she executed said paper-writing. This is what was thought by the executor, for its answer asserts that the testatrix was entirely competent, both mentally and physically, to execute said instrument.
This Court, in Higgins v. Carlton,
In Robinson v. Robinson,
In Baker v. Baltimore Trust Co., supra, at pages 391 and 392 of
"A question whether a testator knew and understood the contents of the paper which he executed is, of course, one submitted for consideration upon the supposition that the will may not be invalid because of mental incapacity, or in case the jury find the testator was capable. Invalidity upon the broad ground of mental incapacity would clear away any question of knowledge and understanding, and it is only the knowledge and understanding of a mentally capable testator that would ever be relevant. And it is not ordinarily relevant at all, for the questions which it would in ordinary cases set a jury to investigating, such as whether the testator paid sufficient attention to what he was signing, whether he reflected upon it sufficiently, or whether he comprehended *60
the phraseology used by his draftsman to accomplish his purposes, are not questions open to inquiry. Wills, above all other written instruments, must stand as written so long as they have been freely signed by competent testators. The law provides safeguarding formalities of execution to give assurance that they are, after the death of the testators, to be taken as expressions of their purposes, and with these all complied with, that which a competent testator has executed after reading it or hearing it read, and left to be carried out as his will, must, generally speaking, be carried out. Taylor v. Creswell,
"In some situations a question of his understanding the contents of the paper, notwithstanding the fact that he knew them, may be permitted, especially where it is shown that some fraud or accident, sickness, or debility may have intervened to prevent understanding. Such an intervening influence is often considered on an issue of procurement of execution by undue influence. It is difficult to formulate a single description of all the situations in which this question of understanding has been permitted, and we do not undertake it, but they are exceptional, and in a particular case, unless one is shown to exist, there would be no legitimate foundation for the question, and the effect of permitting it and transmitting it in the form of an issue would be to set the jury to investigating such improper and irrelevant matters as have been suggested above. Therefore it is not a question to be submitted in all cases, or to be submitted in any except those in which reasons for it are shown to the court." See Hall v. Yellott,
Old age, sickness or debility is not enough to support the issue proposed. If one's capacity to make a will was destroyed by such condition, the proposed issue would be unnecessary. The issue proposed presupposes sanity and capacity, and there must be something more than mere sickness, debilitation, and age, to support such *61 issue. It must be shown that something intervened that prevented the testatrix from understanding the will.
In the case of Lyon v. Townsend,
The ruling of the lower court was correct for the further reason that the proposed issue is bad in form and was, therefore, improper. This issue not only posed the question of a lack of understanding of the alleged will at the time of its execution by Elizabeth Riggs Howard, but required the jury to give its reasons to support the answer it made to the issue. The proposed issue is: Was Elizabeth Riggs Howard, at the time of the alleged execution by her of the said paper-writing, "so weakened and enfeebled and incapacitated by extreme age and by illness and debilitation of both mind and body, that she was" (a) "prevented from understanding" and (b) "did not understand the contents of said paper-writing." This issue embodied two questions: first, did she know the contents of the paper, and second, if she did not know the contents, what facts prevented such knowledge. Each and every issue in a will case transmitted by the Orphans' Court to a court of law should be susceptible of a categorical answer of either yes or no. The answer of a jury determines the question of fact raised by an issue. The purpose of the trial of an issue in a court of law is to determine a fact and a categorical answer given by a jury on an issue determines the fact raised by the issue. The answer means that the jury, from the evidence, has determined the fact submitted by an issue for it to find, and it is improper for the jury to give reasons for its answer. This rule is *62 based on common sense, for it not only prevents confusion but requires the fact to be determined by a clear, unequivocal and categorical answer.
"The form of an issue is not required to state all the matters alleged in the pleadings, but should contain only a clear statement of the question of fact made by the pleadings. Formal pleadings are not required in the orphans' court (Long v. Long,
Ruling affirmed, with costs to appellee.