Keil's Estate

Citations

• 215 Pa. 464
• 64 A. 638
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 824

Syllabus

<p>Will — Probate—Devisamt vel non — Issue.</p> <p>On an appeal from a register of wills admitting a will to probate, the evidence showed that the will was written on one side of a sheet of legal cap, and on the first and third pages of a full sheet, all bound together by wire staples. The first page was closely written while the writing- upon the other two pages was in a fuller and freer hand. The scrivener who wrote the will testified that he had endeavored to write it all on a half sheet of paper, but found that he could not get it on one page, so that he wrote in a larger hand on the other two pages. The theory of the contestants was that the scrivener had torn off the first page or pages, and that in order to make the substituted page properly connect in sense with the second page of the will as probated, he was obliged to write the first or substituted page in a more compact manner than the other pages. Experts called by the contestants testified that the first page was written with a finer pen, with a different /ink and at a later time than the other pages. Experts called by the proponent flatly contradicted this testimony. It was not shown that the scrivener had any motive for substituting a page, and the will itself in its provisions carried out practically the testator’s desires as expressed in other wills which he had made. One witness for the proponent testified that when he saw the will several years before, the first page seemed to have more writing on it, and he thought, but was not positive, that the papers were fastened by a brass fastener instead of a wire staple. Held, that an issue was properly refused.</p>