In Re Andersen's Estate

128 N.W.2d 843, 177 Neb. 374, 1964 Neb. LEXIS 103
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJune 12, 1964
Docket35658
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 128 N.W.2d 843 (In Re Andersen's Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Andersen's Estate, 128 N.W.2d 843, 177 Neb. 374, 1964 Neb. LEXIS 103 (Neb. 1964).

Opinion

Spencer, J.

This is a will contest in which the validity of an instrument purporting to be the last will and testament of Soren T. Andersen is involved. The trial court entered an - order admitting the will to probate, and the contestants perfected an appeal to this court.

The proponent and appellee, the beneficiary of the will, is Nina W. Andersen, the surviving widow of Soren T. Andersen. She will hereinafter be referred to as Nina or as proponent.

The contestants and appellants are Richard J. Andersen, brother, and Emma N. Andersen and Alice Andersen, two unmarried sisters of Soren T. Andersen. They will hereinafter be referred to collectively as contestants, and individually by their given names.

Contestants, in their objections to probate, set out two grounds of alleged invalidity: Lack of sufficient mental capacity to make a will; and undue influence exerted upon the testator by Nina. At the conclusion of contestants’ case,-the trial court sustained proponent’s motion to direct- a verdict in proponent’s favor; ■ and- discharged the jury on the ground that there was not sufficient. evidence to go to the jury on the question of mental capacity, and that there was no evidence to meet the burden of undue influence.

One of contestants’ assignments of error is that the court erred in not submitting the question of testamentary capacity of the testator to the jury. There is no merit to this assignment. The proponent made a prima facie case as to testamentary capacity, and the contestants did not adduce one iota of evidence thereon. Con *377 testants, in their brief, say:- “The principal-ground' of contest in this case is undue influence”; and, “The allegation of mental incapacity was not pursued.” The allegation of mental capacity as such, therefore, is not ah issue herein.

The only issue before us is the question of undue influence.- The burden of proving undue influence devolves upon the contestants. In In re Estate of Hagan, 143 Neb. 459, 9 N. W. 2d 794, 154 A. L. R. 573, we enunciated the rule as follows: “Where a will is attacked on the ground that it was procured by undue influence the burden is upon the party so alleging so to prove¡”

Contestants predicate error on the refusal of the district court to submit the question of undue influence to the jury. We consider this assignment in the light of the well-established rule that upon a motion for a directed verdict at the conclusion of all the evidence, the motion must be treated as an admission of the truth of all of the material and relevant evidence admitted and all proper inferences to be drawn therefrom. See Curtice Co. v. Estate of Jones, 111 Neb. 166, 195 N. W. 930.

The proponent married Soren T. Andersen, who we will hereinafter refer to as the deceased; on August 22, 1956. His first wife had died in 1952. Proponent was a sister of his brother Richard’s first wife, and she had known the deceased since she was 9 years of age. At the time of the marriage she lacked 2 months of being 51 years of age. Deceased was 73 years of age. He died June 11, 1962, at the age of 79. The will in question was executed December 5, 1957. It was drawn and witnessed by Earl J. Lee, his attorney, who had-known him. for 25 years and was then handling legal matters for him. The will was also witnessed by two officers of the First National Bank of Frenlont, the executive vice president-and another vice president. Both of them were personally acquainted with the deceased and had known him for some time although neither of them had had business dealings with him. One of them, who ;was a *378 former county agent, had known deceased as a farmer and was a member of the church to which he belonged. The attorney and the attesting witnesses testified as to the mental competency of the deceased at the time of the execution of the will and as to the observance of all the legal requirements.

Proponent, who had been previously married and who had moved with her husband from Dodge County in 1938, returned to Nebraska after a divorce in 1954. She lived in Fremont but taught school near Valley in Douglas County. At the time of the marriage, deceased owned approximately 700 acres of Dodge County farm land and considerable personal property. Except for some inheritance from his parents, this was acquired by his own efforts. The courtship which culminated in the marriage was a short one. Nina and the deceased were married 3 weeks after deceased took her and his brother Richard, her deceased sister’s husband, and Richard’s second wife out to dinner.

Shortly before the marriage, after a dental extraction, the deceased experienced some trouble with the muscles of his eye and face. By 1959, the situation had become progressively worse, and on August 19 of that year proponent took him to the Mayo Clinic where a full medical and neurological examination was made. His problem was strictly physical and not mental. The doctor at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed his difficulty as “Myasthenia Gravis,” which is a neuromuscular disease and involves the skeletal muscles. Activity aggravates it, but it usually can be corrected by rest. Except for a little difficulty in articulation, the deceased was able to give his medical history and to answer the questions asked of him by the doctor. Deceased’s physical condition subsequent to the will would be immaterial except as it may have had bearing on his susceptibility to influence when the will was made. The mental and physical capacity of a deceased is to be considered in determining what degree of influence will vitiate his will. *379 In re Estate of Paisley, 91 Neb. 139, 135 N. W. 435. Here, however, there was no sufficient competent evidence that deceased at the time the will was drawn had any physical disability which made him susceptible to influence. The evidence is undisputed that during that time and for at least 3 years thereafter he continued to manage his holdings and to do physical labor on buildings and improvements on his holdings.

Before the will in question, the deceased had executed two previous wills. The first was executd August 21, 1956, the day before the marriage. It stated that in a short time he expected to make Nina White his wife. The will devised an interest in some land in Oklahoma, and a cemetery lot in Kansas, to the brothers of his first wife. The will then provided that if Nina was his wife at the time of his death, she was to receive certain described personal property and an undivided one-half interest in the remainder of his estate. The other undivided one-half interest was devised and bequeathed to his brothers and sisters and to the children of any deceased brother or sister. Nina was not present when this will was drawn. The attorney testified that he instructed the deceased that when he returned to Fremont after the marriage, it would be well to draw another will, correctly identifying his wife.

The attorney drew such an instrument sometime in September 1956, but it was not executed. When the deceased read the will, he asked the attorney how much he could leave his wife. The attorney’s testimony is'-as follows: “A- When Soren read this will he asked me how much he could give to his wife. I told him that he could give all of it to her if he wanted to, but under the law she was entitled to half. He said, ‘well, Richard told me that all I — MR KERRIGAN: I object — go ahead. A- T could give her was half’.

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Bluebook (online)
128 N.W.2d 843, 177 Neb. 374, 1964 Neb. LEXIS 103, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-andersens-estate-neb-1964.