Colt's Case

Citations

• 215 Pa. 333
• 64 A. 597
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 794

Syllabus

<p>Lunacy — Weak-minded persons — Control of property — Act of June 19, 1901, P. L. 574.</p> <p>The Act of June 25, 1895, P. L. 300, as amended by the Act of June 19, 1901, P. L. 574, which permits interference with the primary right of a person to control and dispose of his own estate during his life, should not be enforced except in clear cases for the benefit of a person unable to take care of his property.</p> <p>The act will be applied in proceedings instituted by disinterested parties from proper motives and solely to preserve the respondent’s estate for his own good, where it appears that the respondent was mentally weak, that he had transferred the whole of his personal property, recently acquired by inheritance, in exchange for an interest in a manufacturing corporation of which he had no knowledge whatever, and that he knew neither the value of the stock he was to receive, how much he was to get, nor how much he was to pay for it.</p> <p>Since the act gives to the party against whom the proceedings are taken the right to demand a trial by jury, it does not violate the provisions of the Declaration of Rights — -“Trial by jury shall be as heretofore and the right thereof remain inviolate.”</p>