Baker v. Baltimore Trust Co.

³⁹¹ Bond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In settling the forms of issues to be submitted to a, jury in connection with a caveat of a will, the caveators requested an issue whether the testator at the time of executing the will did “know and understand the contents of said paper writing,” and the orphans’ court rejected this form of issue and ordered the transmission, in its stead, of an issue whether “the contents of the paper were read to or hy the testator, or known to him at or before the time of the alleged execution thereof.” And the caveators appeal from the refusal of the issue as they had framed it. The testator was Edward H. Tull, of Somerset County, and the appellants who filed the caveat declare themselves to he a sister and a brother respectively of the deceased. The petition and caveat allege as specific grounds of attack upon the paper offered as a will: that it was not formally executed as required hy law, that Edward E. Tull was at the time not of sound and disposing mind and capable of executing a valid deed or contract, that execution of the paper was procured by undue influence exercised and practised upon him, that it was procured hy fraud, .and that the supposed will was not understood by Edward E. Tull and the contends were not made known to him.

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 eases 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 the phraseology used by his draftsman to accomplish his purposes, are not questions open