(Download) "Lucy Mcgrail v. Sadie T. Schmitt" by Supreme Court of Missouri Division 2 # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lucy Mcgrail v. Sadie T. Schmitt
- Author : Supreme Court of Missouri Division 2
- Release Date : January 14, 1962
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 67 KB
Description
PER CURIAM : This is the second appeal of a suit to contest the will of James Robert McGrail, deceased, who bequeathed his
daughter Lucy $500 in cash, and the residue of his estate (consisting of oil leases worth upwards of $33,000) to his two surviving
sisters. The first amended petition to set aside the will alleged (1) undue influence on the part of the sisters, (2) general
mental incapacity of testator by reason of alcoholism, and (3) an insane delusion that Lucy was not his child. At the first
trial the contestant, Lucy, submitted her case solely on the theory of insane delusion, and the jury returned a verdict setting
aside the will. On the first appeal this Court reversed the judgment based upon that verdict and remanded the case, because
the record did not contain sufficient evidence indicative of an unsound mind, corroborative of the evidence of delusion, to
permit the jury to draw the inference that testator was insane with respect to this one subject and therefore lacked the requisite
capacity to make a will. McGrail v. Rhoades, Mo. Sup., 323 S.W.2d 815. At the second trial the jury again rendered a verdict
setting aside the will. The defendant sisters have appealed from the judgment rendered upon that verdict. At the second trial the contestant abandoned the issue of monomania as an independent ground of recovery and submitted the
case to the jury on the issue of general testamentary incapacity. The specific question submitted at the second trial was
whether at the time of signing the paper writing testator had sufficient mind and memory to know and understand the ordinary
affairs of life; that he was disposing of his property by will; the kind and extent of his property, the persons who were
the natural objects of his bounty, their relation to him and his obligation to them; their deserts, with reference to their
conduct and treatment of him, their capacities and necessities; that he was giving his property to the persons mentioned in
the will, and that he had sufficient mind and memory to know these things without the aid of any other person. The jury was
also instructed that even if testator drank to excess, to such an extent as to weaken or impair his mental faculties, yet
if he was "sufficiently sober and sufficiently in possession of his mental faculties to know and understand and comprehend
the fact that he was signing and publishing and declaring said paper as his will, and so as to understand and comprehend the
nature and extent of his property, and who were reasonably within the range of his bounty, and to whom he was giving and how
he was disposing of his property, without the aid of any other person," then the jury should find that he had sufficient mental
capacity to make a will. Plaintiff expressly withdrew the issue of undue influence.