Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Lange

Citations

• 207 Pa. 527
• 56 A. 1081
• 1904 Pa. LEXIS 512

Syllabus

<p>Will—Issue devisavit vel non—Lunacy—Partial insanity—Delusion— Delusion as to paternity of child.</p> <p>On an issue devisavit vel non the question was whether testator’s will was the product of an insane delusion respecting the fidelity of his wife and his paternity of her child. The delusion existed for seventeen years prior to testator’s death, and covered two periods, in the second of which the will was executed. During the first period there was not the slightest evidence of the existence of any fact or circumstance upon which the testator could, as a rational man, have entertained a belief that his wife had been unfaithful, and that her child was not his son. During the second period there was evidence for the consideration of the jury that what they found to have been a delusion might have been a well-grounded belief in his mind of the infidelity of his wife during the last six or seven years of his life. The testimony showed that testator imagined that a crowd was pursuing him to poison him and get possession of his property; that his wife and her friends were members of it, that his son was a spy for them, and that poison was being administered to him through keyholes, over transoms, through cracks in the wall, and in various other ways. The court refused an offer of the proponents to prove that the attorney for the testator had advised the prosecution of a man for alleged misconduct with testator’s wife. The court submitted the whole oase to the jury with the instruction that if the delusion did not control testator in making his will there could not be a verdict against it. Held, (1) that the offer of evidence as to the attorney’s advice was properly excluded, as the more giving of the advice could not possibly have aided the jury in determining what was the condition of testator’s mind; (2) that the case was properly submitted to the jury, and that a verdict and judgment against the will should be sustained.</p> <p>Where, long prior to the execution o