Chappell v. Trent

Citations

• 90 Va. 849
• 19 S.E. 314
• 1893 Va. LEXIS 63

Syllabus

<p>1. Wills — Capacity—Undue influence — Instructions.—It is error in a suit to set aside a will 'for testamentary incapacity and undue influence, to refuse an instruction asserting that undue influence is any means employed with the testator, which, under the circumstances, he cannot well resist and which induces him to do what otherwise he would not do.</p> <p>2. Idem — Misleading.—An instruction that the- influence to vitiate a will must amount to force and coercion obstructing free agency, and not the mere influence of affection and attachment nor mere desire of gratifying another’s wishes, is misleading as being calculated to impress the jury that only physical force or threats of personal violence would be sufficient to vitiate a will, and is erroneous.</p> <p>3. Idem — Assumption of facts. — It is error to give an instruction ignoring the question of testamentary capacity, and thus assuming its existence, and suggesting that unless it be shown that the will was the result of irresistible importunities, or was made purely for the sake of peace, it must be upheld.</p> <p>4. Idem — Previous declarations. — An instruction assuming that the provisions of a will accord with testator’s affections and previous declarations is ' erroneous where it devises all of testator’s property to persons not related to him, and is contrary to his previous declarations to the effect that he did not intend to make any will, and he is not shown to have had any affection for such beneficiaries.</p> <p>5. Idem — Burden of proof. — Beneficiaries, no kin to a testator eighty-five years old, of greatly impaired health and enfeebled mind, and in their custody, and away from his next of kin, and induced by them or his attending physician to devise to them his entire estate, have the burden of clearly proving that the will was his free and voluntary act.</p> <p>6. Wills — Evidence of testamentary capacity. — That a testator had sufficient mind to answer ordinary questions is not evidence of