Craycroft v. Crawford

275 S.W. 124, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 667
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 20, 1925
DocketNo. 9313.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 275 S.W. 124 (Craycroft v. Crawford) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Craycroft v. Crawford, 275 S.W. 124, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 667 (Tex. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

JONES, C. J.

This is an appeal by plaintiffs in error Lucy Craycroft, Hunter A. Cray-croft, Jeptha D. Crawford, and Meriwether L. Crawford, from a judgment of the district court of Dallas county, refusing to set aside and vacate a judgment of the county court of Dallas county ordering the probatp o-f the will of W. L. Crawford, deceased.

The defendants in ■ error are Mrs. Kate Lamar Crawford and William Lester Crawford. Lucy Craycroft is the daughter, and Jeptha and Meriwether L. Crawford are the sons of the deceased W. L. Crawford by his first wife. Hunter L. Craycroft is the husband of Lucy Craycroft, and is a pro forma party to this-suit. Kate Lamar Crawford is the second and surviving wife of deceased, W. L. Crawford, and William Lester Crawford is his son by this second marriage.

For bievity, the plaintiffs in error will hereafter be termed “contestants,” and the defendants in error will be termed “contest-ees.”

The ground urged by contestants for setting aside the said judgment is undue influence, and their pleadings on this issue áre full and complete. At the conclusion of the trial in the county court a judgment adverse to contestants was entered, from which an appeal was prosecuted to the district court, and a judgment also adverse to contestants there entered, from which latter judgment this writ of error is duly perfected. The cause was tried before a jury in the district court, and continued for approximately four weeks. At the close of the testimony offered by contestants, peremptory instructions were given in favor of contestees, and the said judgment entered on this instructed verdict. Error was duly assigned on the action of the trial court in giving the peremptory instructions in favor of contestees. Error was also assigned on the ruling of the trial court in excluding certain testimony of thé witness Willis Evans. Two questions are therefore presented to this court for review: One, on the assignment of error as to the exclusion of the testimony of the said witness; tbe other, on an assignment of error that the evidence was sufficient to raise an issue of undue influence, and that contestants were entitled to have this issue submitted to -the jury.

Before stating the material evidence given on the trial of the case, it is deemed profitable first to announce the general principles of law applicable to cases of this character. In determining whether or not the evidence introduced by the contestants is sufficient to require the submission of issues to the jury, the same rules, apply as in any other civil case. In moving for peremptory instructions, contestees4 must be deemed to have admitted the truth of the evidence offered by contestants, and this evidence must be given its greatest probative force. Every favorable inference, fairly deducible from the evidence, and every favorable presumption fairly arising therefrom, must be considered as facts established in favor of contestants. Where evidence is fairly susceptible to more than one construction, or where more than one inference may be reasonably drawn from evidence, the trial court must take the view in each instance most favorable to contestants. When the evidence *126 is viewed from this standpoint, if there exists substantial evidence tending to prove a fact or facts necessary to 'sustain the charge of undue influence, then it is the duty of the trial court to- submit such issue to a jury for its determination. If, however, the evidence when so viewed only raises a suspicion, or only gives rise to a mere surmise that the necessary fact or facts to establish undue influence exist, then contestants’ case has failed, and it is the duty of the court to instruct the jury accordingly. In determining the question as to whether the evidence offered by contestants is sufficient to raise an issue for submission to the jury, neither the trial court nor this court can weigh and determine the probative force of this evidence other than for the purpose above stated. After the jury has returned a verdict, then only is the trial court authorized to weigh and determine the probative force of the evidence on which the jury made its findings, and this only for the purpose of determining whether such findings are so against the weight and preponderance of the evidence that the verdict pronouncing them ought not to he given judicial approval.

Undue influence may be defined to be the exercise of acts or conduct of one person toward another person, by means of which the mind of the latter is subjected to the will of the person seeking to control it. When this general definition of the term is applied to a ground of contest of the will of a decedent, it may be said that here undue influence has reference to the means and methods used and employed by a person for the purpose of affecting and overcoming, and .which ultimately do affect and overcome, the free and unrestrained will of a testator. Undue influence can rarely be established by direct proof, and, accordingly, ■ it is the rule that the fact of its exercise may be proven by indirect evidence and by proof of facts from which it may be reasonably inferred. All the circumstances surrounding the execution of the alleged testamentary instrument, and all the facts tending to show the domination of the mind of the deceased to the will of the beneficiary, are permissible in evidence, provided such facts and circumstances are' sufficiently related in time, under well-recognized rules of evidence, to bear on such issue.

There is an influence which a wife, by her virtues, her love, and her sacrifices, gains over her husband’s affections and conduct, whereby he may be caused to make- a will in her favor, which cannot be considered as and must not be taken for undue influence. Ater v. Moore (Tex. Civ. App.) 231 S. W. 459. A wife may lawfully urge her husband to make a will in her favor, and, in response to her lawful solicitations, the husband may change his mind in reference to the disposition of his property and make a will in the wife’s favor, which he would not have made but for her influence, and still there would exist no ground for refusing to admit the will for probate. As between husband and wife, the influence exerted, in order to defeat the probate of a will, must go beyond legitimate argument, legitimate persuasion, and amount to domination or coercion.

To be considered in the light of these principles, the following is offered as a statement of the material evidence admitted in behalf of contestants at the trial:

■ Colonel W. L. Crawford, the testator, was a man endowed with unusual brilliancy of mind, and had attained a success and renown in his profession as a lawyer that has been the reward of but few. He was a resident of Jefferson, Tex., engaged in the practice of his profession, when, in 1866, he married his first wife. There were born to this marriage the three children who are contestants in this will, and a fourth child who only survived a very short time, the mother and child dying at approximately -the same time. There were two brothers who were also lawyers, M. L. Crawford and Dudley- Crawford, and these three were engaged in the practice of law at Jefferson under the firm name of Crawford, Crawford & Crawford. After the death of Mrs. Crawford in 1873, the -mother of testator presided over his home, and to her charge was committed the three small children. Some few years after-wards, these brothers decided to move to Dallas and establish themselves in that city in the practice of law.

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Bluebook (online)
275 S.W. 124, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 667, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/craycroft-v-crawford-texapp-1925.