Trainer v. McGarrity

Citations

• 40 Pa. Super. 57
• 1909 Pa. Super. LEXIS 564

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Probate—Undue influence — Death of party — Practice, O. P.— Evidence.</p> <p>1. On an appeal from a judgment on a verdict sustaining a will, the appellants have no standing to complain of the action of the court in submitting the case to the jury, because one of the contestants was dead at the time of the trial and his representatives had not been substituted of record.</p> <p>2. On the trial of an issue devisavit vel non where undue influence is alleged, it is not error to refuse to admit in evidence the will of the husband of the decedent, which gave to the latter a power which the contestants alleged was not properly exercised.</p> <p>3. In such a case evidence that the decedent had executed a deed of land to the beneficiary, and that the latter was present when -the decedent drew a certain sum of money from bank, is not sufficient to establish undue influence, where there is nothing to indicate that the conveyance was not a free and voluntary act of the decedent, and there is nothing to show what she did with the money which she had withdrawn from the bank; nor in such a case is it permissible to show that a priest who was alleged to have unduly influenced decedent, had been withdrawn from a church on charges that he had induced people to make and alter wills.</p> <p>Practice, C. P. — Trial—Mistake—Correction of mistake.</p> <p>4. Where counsel object to certain words used by the trial judge in his charge, and the latter immediately renews the instructions omitting the words objected to, and stating the law correctly, the use of such words, even though erroneous, is not a ground for reversing the judgment.</p>