Cressman's Estate

Citations

• 246 Pa. 291
• 92 A. 204
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 510

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Issue devisavit vel non — Testamentary capacity — Undue influence — Meretricious relations — Devisee.</p> <p>A petition for an issue devisavit vel non on the ground'of undue influence and' want of testamentary capacity was properly dismissed, where it appeared that the testator died at the age of seventy-five leaving but one lineal descendant, a grandson, the contestant; that for three years prior to testator’s death he boarded with Mrs. W.; that more than two years before his death he made his will devising his real estate to his grandson, with the condition that if he should die unmarried and without issue and without leaving a widow before he became twenty-one years of age, the property so devised should go to Mrs. W., to whom testator bequeathed the remainder of his estate; that on the day he executed his will testator went alone to the office of a justice of the peace and in his presence and that of his clerk, stated what disposition he wished made of his estate, that he had lost confidence in his grandson and wished to reward Mrs. W. for her care and kindness while he boarded at her home; that he returned to the office of the justice of the peace alone several hours later, read the will and it was read to him item by item, expressed his satisfaction with it and signed it in the presence of two disinterested witnesses; and where the allegations in the petition that testator’s mind had been impaired by disease, and that he was readily influenced by Mrs. W., with whom he had maintained a meretricious relation, and that she had induced him to destroy a former will in favor of his grandson and by constraint and domination had secured the making of the will in question, were denied by the answer and were not supported by satisfactory evidence.</p>