Hoffman's Estate

Citations

• 209 Pa. 357
• 58 A. 665
• 1904 Pa. LEXIS 631

Syllabus

<p>Inmacy—Persons of feeble mind—Act of June 25, 1895, P. L. 300—Will— Codicil—Presumption.</p> <p>The Act of June 25, 1895, P. L. 300, entitled “An act for the protection of persons unable to care for their own property,” is in pari materia with the lunacy acts, and should receive a construction upon the-same general lines. It establishes a legal status or condition, intermediate between normal mental capacity and insanity or idiocy, a state of weak or enfeebled mind, neither mens sana nor non compos mentis. It is a dangerous statute easily capable of abuse by designing relatives to accomplish the very wrong intended to be guarded against, and therefore to be administered by the courts with the utmost caution and conservatism.</p> <p>A decree under the Act of June 25, 1895, P. L. 300, that a person is of weak and enfeebled mind, and not able to take care of his property, raises a presumption that the person who is the subject of the decree is incapable of making a codicil to his will, but it does not close all inquiry as to the person’s capacity at the time of the execution of the codicil. The proponent of the codicil has the burden upon him to show testamentary capacity.</p>