In re Sprowl's Will

Citations

• 109 La. 352
• 33 So. 365
• 1903 La. LEXIS 390

Syllabus

<p>LOST WILL — PROBATION—PETITION-OBJECTIONS.</p> <p>1. Where persons come into court, seeking to prove by parol testimony the existence, contents, and loss or destruction of a will under which they claim as instituted heirs, an exception that they cannot be heard until they have first attacked and set aside the proceedings whereby the succession of the testator has been opened, administered, and closed, and the property divided among the heirs at law, is not well taken.</p> <p>2. The point at which the allegations of a petition become inherently too vague and indefinite to admit of proof, if there is any such point, must, in the nature of things, be variable, and cannot be established by any rule which can be applied to all cases alike.</p> <p>3. Where it is alleged that a will containing a bequest in favor of the petitioners was among the papers of the testator at the time of his death; that such papers went into the possession of the defendants, or those from whom they have inherited; and that the will has been lost or destroyed, — the object of the proceeding being merely to prove the facts alleged, — an exception of no cause of action is not well taken; nor is an exception of vagueness, based upon the failure of the petitioners to set forth specifically the form, date, and other particulars concerning the will, where it appears that they expect to establish such particulars by the testimony of the defendants.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>