Dundas' Estate

Citations

• 213 Pa. 628
• 63 A. 45
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 549

Syllabus

<p>Decedents’ estates — Evidence—Evidence as to birth of claimant.</p> <p>A claim of right not asserted as a legal demand until after the death of the party affected by it, although upon the claimant’s own showing it originated and matured many years before, comes before the orphans’ court discredited on its face, and with every presumption against it; and this applies with increased force where the claim, repudiated in the lifetime of a decedent, not only involved a large portion of the estate, but, if sustained, blasts the decedent’s good name, and convicts of the commission of crime. A recovery iu such a case can only be had upon evidence clear and convincing; the claim must be established by the testimony, free from inconsistency or contradiction, of witnesses whose veracity is unimpeachable; and the circumstances must be such as to be inconsistent with any other explanation, and leave no rational doubt of the justice of the claim. To doubt as to such a claim, must, necessarily, be to deny. This principle applies to a claim to share as a distributee in a decedent’s estate, where the claimant asserts that he was the illegitimate son of decedent, although born during the period of the decedent’s lawful wedlock, and such claim was repudiated in the lifetime of the decedent.</p>