Gleason v. Jones

Citations

• 79 Okla. 191

Syllabus

<p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p> <p>1. Witnesses — Confidential Relations — Physician and Patient.</p> <p>Paragraph 6 of section 5050, Rev. Laws 1910, providing that a physician or surgeon shall be incompetent to testify concerning any communication made to him by his patient-with reference to any physical or supposed physical disease, or any knowledge obtained by a personal examination of such patient, does not apply when the circumstances surrounding the communication or knowledge obtained by personal examination were such as to show that what was said or discovered on the occasion was not intended to be confidential, and especially when third persons were present and heard all that was said between the deceased and the physician and the knowledge obtained by a personal examination was as patent to the third persons as it was to the physician.</p> <p>2. Wills — Undue Influence — Facts Not Constituting.</p> <p>A devise to one associated with testatrix in an immoral environment and the presence • of the devisee in the room where testatrix was instructing her lawyer .'as to the disposition she wished to make of her property, the lawyer being at the time engaged in drafting the will, would not, because of the immorality of the association or the presence of the devisee standing alone, give rise to an inference of undue influence exerted by the devisee over the testatrix.</p> <p>3, Same.</p> <p>Undue influence such as will invalidate a will must be something which destroys the free agency of the testator at the time when the instrument is made, and which, in effect, substitutes the will of another for that of the testator. It is not sufficient that the testator was influenced by the beneficiaries in the ordinary affairs of life, or that he was surrounded by them and in confidential relations with them at the time of its execution. Mere general influence, not brought to bear on the testamentary act, is not undue influence; hut, in order to constitute undue influence, it