Kelley v. Stanton

³⁸² Oetb-utt, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Charles V. Stanton was horn, for the greater part of his life lived, and finally died, in .Dorchester County, Maryland. His death occurred at the Eastern Shore State Hospital September 23rd, 1920, on his fifty-seventh birthday. He was survived by four brothers and a nephew, who were his next of kin and only heirs at law.

He was by trade a bricklayer and plasterer and, measured by the achievements of other members of his family having equal opportunities, he appears to have been fairly successful in his business. Starting without capital or resources other than natural skill and industry, he left an estate valued at from six to ten thousand dollars. He appears to have satisfactorily discharged what may be regarded as his obligations to his family and his community. He was attentive to his parents, solicitious of their welfare and careful of their wants; he was a good neighbor and well liked and respected by those with whom he lived in closest touch.

He took some part in the usual neighborhood affairs, attended church regularly and occasionally participated in the varied and comprehensive debates at the village store that from time to time enlivened the dullness of village life. A short time before his death his mind became affected and, on September 7th, 1920, he was found by a jury, empaneled to inquire into his mental condition, to be “of unsound mind and mentally deranged, without lucid intervals of any duration, so that he is not capable of the government of himself or of the management of his estate, and that he has been in such state of mind for several weeks past, without probability of an early recovery of his reason,” and his brother, John Stanton, was appointed a committee of his person and estate. On May 3rd, 1918, he executed the will which is the subject of this controversy, in which he bequeathed his entire estate to his nephew, Charles Lee Kelley. After his death this will was admitted to probate in the Orphans’ Court of Dorchester County, and letters testamentary thereon granted to John F. Stanton, the executor named ³⁸³ in die will, on September 25, 1920, and on June 28th, 1921, Vernon W. Stanton, Clarence S. Stanton and Grant Stanton, brothers of the testator, filed in the Orphans’ Court of Doru cliester County a caveat to that will, on the grounds that it was not validly executed, that when it was executed the decedent was of unsound mind and incapable of executing a valid deed or contract, that he did not know or understand its contents, and that it was procured by undue influence and fraud.

After the usual pleadings., issues were framed presenting these several objections and transmitted to the Circuit Court for Dorchester County, whore they were tried by a jury, which by their verdict found first that the supposed will was net executed when Cintiles Ah Stanton was of sound and disposing mind and capable of executing a valid deed or contract, and second, that it was procured by undue influence. During the course of the trial the caveatees reserved two exceptions to the court’s rulings on matters of evidence and one to its rulings on the prayers, and from the rulings embodied in those exceptions this appeal was taken. The first exception relates to' the admission in evidence of the return of the inquisition in the proceedings in which the decedent was, in September, 1920, adjudicated to he of unsound mind. Assuming that the evidence was in proper form (since no objection was. made to it on that ground) we find no error in that ruling.

Hutchins v. Hutchins, 135 Md. 401 ; Brashears v. Orme, 93 Md. 442 ; Taylor v. C res swell, 45 Md. 422 ; Gesell v. Baugher, 100 Md. 677 . The case of Packham v. Glendmeyer, 103 Md. 416 , does not deal with this question. The Court there was passing upon the admissibility of the finding of a jury in an issue involving the testamentary capacity of a testator in connection with the execution of another will than the one involved in that case and rested its decision upon the ground that “judgments and decrees as against those not parties to them are only ''admissible to prove ram ipsam, and the legal incidents and consequences’ thereof; but ‘'not to prove the facts’ upon which ³⁸⁴ they are founded,” and that therefore the finding of a jury that the testator lacked the requisite testamentary capacity to execute one will did not show that he had not the required testamentary capacity to execute another will at a different time. But in this case the res ipsa found by the inquisition was the mental condition of the testator at the very time the will was made.

Davis v. Calvert, 5 G. & J. 300 ; Harris v. Hipsley, 122 Md. 430 ; 28 R. C. L. 100; Williams v. Lee, 47 Md. 325 ; Annot. Cas. 1915 B. 1009 . There are cases which hold that such evidence should not be admitted, but, in view of the decisions of this Court that any evidence of the mental condition of the testator, either before or after the execution of the will, is admissible for the purpose of reflecting upon his mental condition at the time the will was executed, this evidence was admissible. It was not, however, conclusive, but its force and effect depended upon the other evidence in the case, and in the absence of evidence' connecting the mental condition of the testator as disclosed by the inquisition with a want of testamentary capacity a.t the date of the will, the inquisition alone would be insufficient to show such incapacity.

During the- examination of Grant Stanton, one of the caveators, he was asked by council for the caveators this question: Basing’ it upon your knowledge and association and experience and observations — all you have said — will you please state whether or not in your opinion your brother at the time of the execution of this alleged will was of sound and disposing mind and. capable of making, a valid deed or contract?” An objection to the question was overruled and the witness answered “no,” and that ruling is the subject of the second exception. There was, in our opinion, for reasons given more fully below, error in that ruling, since there was no proper foundation for the question. Whisner v. Whisner, 122 Md. 204 . This brings us to the third exception, which presents for review the court’s rulings on the prayers. ³⁸⁵ The plaintiffs offered three prayers, all of which the court granted, and the defendants twelve prayers, of which ten were granted and two refused.

There was no error in granting the plaintiffs’ prayers, as the legal propositions embodied in them have been frequently passed upon and approved by this Court in the form in which they are stated in these prayers. Objection could have been made to them in the form of a special exception, on the ground that there was no evidence in the case legally sufficient to support the hypotheses of such prayers, but as no such exceptions were tiled these prayers must be regarded as properly granted. Lewis v. Schlichter, 137 Md. 217 . The defendants’ second prayer asked the court to direct a verdict for the caveatees on the second issue on the ground that there was no evidence in the case legally sufficient to show that the testator was not, at the time the will was executed, of sound mind, and capable of executing a valid deed or contract, while in their third prayer they asked that a verdict bo directed for them on the third issue on the ground that there was no evidence legally sufficient to show that the will was procured by undue influence.

These prayers were refused, and the rulings of the court in refusing them presented the most important questions involved in the appeal. Inasmuch as these two prayers rest upon the theory that, while all the evidence supporting the caveat is true, it is legally insufficient to show either mental incapacity or undue influence, it becomes necessary to review the testimony taken at the trial. The will was prepared by Elias McAllister, a justice of the peace, at his office at Vienna, at the request of Lee Kelley, the father of Charles Lee Kelley, the devisee named in the will. The testato-r had not himself spoken to McAllister about the will, although he had seen him a few days before.

When Mr. Kelley came to his office at Vienna, which was about twelve miles from Galestown, where Charles V. Stanton lived, McAllister asked him how he wanted the will drawn, and he replied that Charlie (meaning the testator) ³⁸⁶ said he- wanted Kelley’s son to have all he had. After the will was drawn it was turned over to Mr. Kelley, who took it to Charles V. Stanton. After keeping it for a while, Stanton sent for Kelley, Senior, and his son to come over to his home. They went over and Kelley, Senior, and the testator drove over to the home of Mr. Thomas Harper at Sharpstown, where the will was executed in the presence of Mr. Harper and Mr. Kelley, Senior, who witnessed it.

The principal witness relied upon by the caveators to establish the fact that the testator was mentally incapable of executing the will was Grant Stanton, a brother. Indeed he was the only witness called by the caveators who ventured to express any opinion in regard to the testator’s testamentary capacity at all. He testified that he lived at Portsmouth, Virginia,. and had lived there since July, 1908, and that prior to that time he lived at Delmar, in Delaware, except for a period of one year, when they lived on the fárm of Charles V. Stanton in Dorchester County, some time in 1915. His mother was Mary M. Stanton and his father Thomas Jefferson Stanton.

His mother died in May, 1914, and his father in 1918, and that his father and mother had ten children, of whom four survive, and that with Lee Kelley, a son of Charles Lee Kelley, who married a sister of Charles V. Stanton, who predeceased the testator, they are the nearest relatives and only heirs at law of Charles V. Stanton. Charles V. Stanton, the testator, was a bricklayer and plasterer. Grant Stanton, the witness, was a railroad man and occasionally, at intervals of several months, visited his brother, Charles V. Stanton, at his home in Dorchester County, except during the year in which he occupied his brother’s farm, when he of course saw more of him. His relations with him had always been good and, after their mother’s death in 1914, at his brother’s request he removed his family from Uorfolk to the farm which his brother owned, in order that he would be in a position to look after his brother, who was unmarried, and their father.

There was ³⁸⁷ no written lease, but an oral contract of rental in which Grant Stanton, the witness, agreed to hoard Charles Stanton and their father and io give Charles Stanton twenty-five dollars a month, and it was further agreed that Charles Stanton was to look after and operate the farm while Grant, whose position required him to be absent so often that he could not run the farm himself, was to get all the produce from it. The witness then went on to say that, after he had been on the farm a -while, his brother first offered to will him the farm and he dissuaded him from doing it and then, on another occasion, when they were driving from. Seaford to Gales,town, the testator said to the witness, “I am going to will it to Bertha,” Bertha being a daughter of the witness, and again the witness discouraged him from disposing of his property in that way, and from then on Charles V. Stanton said nothing further to the witness about a will. Some time later, in the summer of 191.5, Charles Stanton met him at Seaford “as usual on Saturday and taken me back Sunday afternoon.

I noticed he was acting funny, what I would consider about half mad about something' or other — on this Sunday afternoon, I said, ‘Charlie, if we are going to Sea-ford, we had better go .so that we can get back before night.’ I wasn’t going to take the train and I was going to stop with a friend. We had plenty of time to get to Seaford and get back before night. On the other side of Cheffel Branch, two miles this side of Seaford, he stopped his horse all at once and said, ‘Whoa,. Would you mind walking to Sea-ford ?’ I said, ‘Sure, I would mind it, but I don’t want to.’ He said, ‘I am going back,’ and be turned his horse for ine to get out.

There was nothing for me to do but get out. I had to get out and walk, to Seaford, and from that on during that year we had a awful lot of trouble to stay ou tbe farm.” Tbis temblé appears to have been that the testator complained that he did not get the rent he expected for the farm and he sat around, would not talk, seem to be “mad” all the time and nothing suited him; he would not eat with the family; ³⁸⁸ in fact lie left and went down town with an old lady with whom he appears to have boarded. For a time the two brothers did not appear to have been on speaking terms, and on one occasion, to quote the witness again, he went out to his brother’s home and “found him home and I have not seen him since we had to leave, since we moved. He tried to ^top my household goods and said I owed him a lot of money.

I asked him why he acted the way he did at the time my wife was moving — I didn’t come up to move because I could not get,off the middle of the week — his answer was, ‘Grant, Lee Kelley is,the cause of it all, he told me you would have everything I have got before I died if I didn’t get you off the farm.’ He started to crying and I talked to him a while. He cried, and, of course, I didn’t bother him any more.” The witness, at the time the trouble arose, appears to have owed his brother some two months rent. Another incident to which he refers was that in 1910 Charles Y. Stanton offered to give the witness’ oldest son a watch and, when the witness objected to it, he sold it to the boy for twenty-five dollars. The witness also said that his brother, Charles, was changeable, “would do things today he would cry about tomorrow if you said anything to him about it.

He would sell you something today and tomorrow he would come back and almost double what you gave for it to get it back,” and he referred to the fact that his brother had sold his farm and afterwards bought it back, paying more for it than he had received when he sold it. He also testified that his grandfather “lost his mind before he died,” and that in 1920 his brother Charles’ mind became so much affected that he had to be taken to the hospital, where he afterwards died. He referred to the fact that his brother, when a young man, had been engaged to be married, but had broken off the marriage, and when asked why he didn’t go through with it, replied, he would have done so, “if it had not been for a certain party,” and further elaborated that commonplace explanation by saying that a certain party told him he had better ³⁸⁹ not marry the girl. On cross-examination, the witness said that his brother completed his apprenticeship and worked at Port Norfolk, Virginia, for sixteen or seventeen years and accumulated some money there.

That during those years he saw little of him and that.when Charles left Port Norfolk he returned to Dorchester County, where he owned a farm, which he had bought from, his brother, John. That he earned the money with which to buy the farm and later in his life he put his mother and father on it and they lived on it for some twenty years. That his father was eighty-four when he died and his mother seventy-six. That he was industrious, well liked in the community in which he lived and that everybody was his friend.

That he was a source of help to the local church, and, in referring to the sale of the farm witness admitted that it might have been bought hack because the testator’s father objected to leaving the place on which he ho had lived so long. The witness admitted that, when he left in 1915, he and his brother had gotten into a dispute. That they “fussed.” At the conclusion of this witness’ testimony, he was asked whether at the time of the execution of the alleged will Charles V. Stanton was capable of executing a valid deed or contract and to that question, over objection, he replied that he did not think 'he was. We have quoted rather fully from the testimony of this witness, because his testimony comprises substantially all the material testimony adduced by the caveators to prove that their brother, Charles.

V. Stanton, was mentally incompetent to make the will. There were other witnesses but