McGinley's Estate

Citations

• 257 Pa. 478
• 101 A. 807
• 1917 Pa. LEXIS 762

Syllabus

<p>1Wills — Testamentary capacity — Hallucinations and delusions— Evidence — Contracts to malee a will — Mutual wills — Consideration —Evidence—Sufficiency.</p> <p>1. In determining the right to an issue devisavit vel non the test is whether after a review of the whole testimony the trial judge would sustain a verdict against the will as being in accord with the manifest weight of the evidence.</p> <p>2. At the hearing of a petition for an issue devisavit vel non where it was alleged that testatrix was subject to hallucinations and delusions at the time when she executed it, but where the subscribing witnesses, decedent’s physician and an alderman of the ward who had transacted decedent’s business for many years and another reputable witness testified that decedent’s mental condition was good at the time when she executed the will, and, it further appeared that decedent had furnished the data to the scrivener who drew the will; that he had read the will to her; that her conversation was clear and natural; her hearing and sight good; and that she knew what she was doing, what property she possessed, and to whom her estate was to go, it was not error to refuse the issue, although there was some evidence that decedent had on several occasions in answer to greetings of friends on the street indicated a weak intellect and loss of memory..</p> <p>3. Where in such ease contestants alleged that decedent and her husband had made mutual wills whereby the property should ultimately pass to contestants in consideration of contestants’ agreement to take care of decedent and her husband during their lives; that they had performed their part of the contract for a period of two years, until decedent’s husband died; that decedent left them without cause, and died three weeks thereafter, having first made the will which was admitted to probate; and when contestants offered, in support of their contentions, evidence of declarations of decedent and her husband that they had mutually ag