Greene v. Greene

Citations

• 145 Ill. 264

Syllabus

<p>1. Wills—test of mental capacity to malee a will—former decision. A person who has sufficient mental capacity to transact ordinary business is presumed to be capable of making a valid testamentary disposition of his property. . The degree of mentality required in the making of a valid will is no greater than that exhibited in such ordinary affairs. It therefore logically follows that he who has conducted himself according to the standards observed by the mass of the people in such affairs is capable of making a will; but it does not necessarily follow that the converse of the proposition must also be logical or true. The case of Keithley v. Stafford, 126 Ill. 507, in so far as it is in conflict with this holding, is not to be regarded as authority.</p> <p>2. As it requires no greater capacity to make a testamentary disposition of property than to transact the ordinary business of life, such as buying and selling property, settling accounts, collecting and paying out money and the like transactions, it follows that if the testator is mentally capable of transacting such business, he is capable of making a valid will.</p> <p>3. The rule seems to be that one may be capable of making a will and yet be incapable of disposing of his property by contract, or of managing his estate. He may be capable of making a will when his property is small and the distribution of it simple, and at the same time incapable of making disposition of considerable estate, where theprop•erty is involved and the disposition sought to be made is intricate and complicated.</p> <p>4. On the contest of a will the court, at the instance of the contestants, instructed the jury to the effect, that if they believed from the evidence that during the summer or fall of 1886 the testator had become “so enfeebled in mind as to be incapable of acting rationally in the ordinary affairs of life,” and “incapable of rationally transacting ordinary business affairs to which he had theretofore been accustomed,