Glebus's Estate

Citations

• 267 Pa. 125
• 110 A. 80
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 822

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Revocation—Nuncupative will — Act of April 8, 1888, P, L. 2b9.</p> <p>1. Declarations by a party on his deathbed as to disposition of his property, with directions to secure a scrivener, cannot operate as a nuncupative will; the desire indicated was rather the disposition of his property by a written instrument.</p> <p>2. A will drawn by testator’s attorney and duly executed in the presence of two witnesses, will not be revoked by the expressed desire of the testator, where it appears that the testator stated his desire to change his will so as to give his estate to his two children by his divorced wife; that he directed that some one be sent for to draw a new will; that he persisted for twenty-four hours thereafter in such desire until he became unconscious and shortly afterwards died; that diligent efforts were made by his divorced wife to secure a scrivener; that testator asked her and a friend of such wife to be “dependable witnesses”; and that five days elapsed, after testator’s death, before an alleged nuncupative will, of which the divorced wife was one of the witnesses, was reduced to writing.</p> <p>3. Such a writing, even if it were a nuncupative will, could not be held to revoke the previous will, in view of the Act of April 8, 1833, P. L. 249, which expressly provides that a prior will can be revoked by a nuncupative will only when the latter is “committed to writing in the lifetime of the testator, and after the writing thereof [is] read to or by him, and allowed by him, and proved to be so done by two or more witnesses.”</p>