Rodriguez v. Succession of McFettridge

100 So. 68, 156 La. 111, 1924 La. LEXIS 1986
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedFebruary 18, 1924
DocketNo. 25985
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 100 So. 68 (Rodriguez v. Succession of McFettridge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rodriguez v. Succession of McFettridge, 100 So. 68, 156 La. 111, 1924 La. LEXIS 1986 (La. 1924).

Opinion

LAND, J.

This is a suit to have declared invalid a certain nuncupative will, purporting to be by private act, and which was exe■cuted by Mrs. Margaret Muller McFettridge ■on January 9, 1921.

The testatrix died in the city of Baton -Rouge, La., on June 20, 1921, without ascendants or descendants.

The petitioners, Mrs. Sallie Daigle and Robert Rodriguez, are respectively the niece and nephew of the deceased, and her nearest relatives in the collateral line.

The will institutes Henry MeEettridge, the ■husband of the. testatrix, as her universal legatee, and was probated and ordered executed by a judgment of the district court of the parish of East Baton Rouge rendered in July, 1921, and the legatee was sent into the possession of the estate. The invalidity of the will is based by petitioners upon three grounds:

(1) Because three of the five subscribing witnesses, namely Joe Bernstein, Edmund Macey, and T. D. Newsham, were not residents of the parish of East Baton Rouge wherein said will was executed, or even residents of the state of Louisiana, at the time of the confection of said will.

(2) Because the testatrix was insane at the time of the execution of the will, and wholly incapable of understanding or appreciating •the consequences of her act.

(3) Because said will was the consummation of a, fraudulent scheme on the part of Henry McFettridge to defraud the deceased ■out of her property and the petitioners out of their rights.

During the pendency of the suit, McFettridge became insane, and was committed to the insane asylum at Jackson, La., under Act 253 of 1910, and a curator ad hoc was appointed to represent him in these proceedings.

Pretermitting all of the grounds of attack upon the will, except that of insanity of the testatrix, it is clearly dedudble from the testimony in the ease that, at the moment of the execution of the testament, January 9^ 1921, the mind of the relatrix was so impaired as to make it an untrustworthy vehicle for the conveyance of her true will or wish.

A correct picture of the mental condition of the testatrix during the period December, 1918, to January 19, 1919, is shown by the testimony of Dr. Sam D. Wall, the physician in attendance during that time. The testatrix was in a comatose condition when she first came under his observation, from a stroke of paralysis, designated by him as motor paralysis of arm and leg. She was suffering from apoplexy and softening of the brain. While the physical condition of the testatrix improved, under the treatment, so that she could walk without support and was able to feed herself, her mental condition remained defective. The witness testifies that “she was mentally irresponsible at the time she passed from under my treatment (January 19, 1919), my conclusion being based on her inability to converse intelligently or understand a conversation between others,” and he states that it was a form of mental irresponsibility that could be easily detected by the casual observer. The witness also says that “she was absolutely not mentally responsible or possessed of such mental soundness as would have enabled her to appreciate the significance of a contract or give expression in any way to what may have been her true will or wish.”

Prior to this period petitioner had suffered a stroke of paralysis in 1914 or 1915, while in the state of Texas. Dr. Wall attended her during her second stroke in 1918, at the home of Mr. Hochendale, in the city of Baton Rouge. She suffered a third stroke in 1919 while at the Daigle home in Plaquemine. She was stricken the fourth time in 1920, while living at her home on Middle street in the city of Baton Rouge, where she died from the fifth and final stroke in June, 1921.

[115]*115The mental and physical degeneration of the testatrix in 1919 is clearly shown also by the testimony of Mrs. D. A. Patrick, who operated a boarding house on Lafayette street in the Gity of Baton Rouge, where testatrix stopped before purchasing her home in that city; by the testimony of Mrs. McCormick, real estate agent, and of Mrs. Bertin, the owner, who refused to sell this property to testatrix, without the consent of Mr. D. M. Reymond, vice president of the Louisiana National Bank, who had taken a personal interest in the management of the business of the testatrix, and whose testimony shows her mental incapacity. It is unnecessary to review the testimony of the relatives of the testatrix and of other witnesses, as it would be nothing short of a miracle for a woman with a softened brain in the year 1918, and clearly mentally deficient at that date, to have regained her normal mental condition by January 9, 1921, the date of her will, when two additional strokes of paralysis had intervened and had been suffered by her between these dates.

■ We have the direct testimony of Mrs. Julia Bertin, who sold the testatrix her home in Baton Rouge, as to the mental and physical condition of the testatrix on March 25, 1921, only several months before her death in June, 1921, and only several months after making her will. This witness testifies that at this date, March 25, 1921, “the old lady didn’t have her right mind"; that “she was childish,” and “not capable of appreciating the significance of a will”; that “she was paralyzed and she could hardly speak; you could hardly understand her at all. She held her head down the whole time; she didn’t have her mind at all.”

As this was the mental and physical condition of the testatrix about two months and a half after the date of her will, and as her mental condition was defective, on January 19, 1919, it cannot bo reasonably presumed that she was of sound and disposing mind at the date of the making of this will, especially because of the nature of the -disease of the testatrix, softening of the brain. The pressure of the blood clot, resulting from cerebral hemorrhage, being the cause of paralysis, it is clear from the repeated strokes that this clot had never been dissolved or removed at' any time, prior to the death of the testatrix. That mental improvement is not possible under such conditions,’where the effect of any preceding strobe is to impair both mind and body, is a conceded medical fact. See testimony of Dr. J. J. Robert, the only physician who testified as an expert.

The metal condition of the testatrix is therefore shown to have been habitual, or continuous, from the year 1918. The will in this case was not written by the testatrix; it was not prepared personally by her. Its provisions, therefore, • cannot be relied upon as establishing a presumption that it was executed during a lucid interval. We do not well see how such proof could be produced at all under the circumstances of this case. While the burden of proof is on those who attack the will to show that it was not executed during a lucid interval, yet where the condition of habitual insanity is established, this burden shifts to proponents, where the will has not been written by the testator, and evidences sanity upon its face because of its judicious provisions.

Kingsbury v. Whitaker, 32 La. Ann. 1055, 36 Am. Rep. 278; Chandler v. Barrett, 21 La. Ann. 58, 99 Am. Dec. 701; Succession of Morere, 114 La. 513, 38 South. 435; R. C. L. vol. 28, p. 99, par. 50.

Petitioners allege that the succession of Mrs. Margaret Muller MeFettridge owes no debts, making an administration unnecessary, and that they desire to accept said succession purely and simply, and to be placed in the possession of its effects. They pray for judgment in their favor against Henry McFet[117]

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Bluebook (online)
100 So. 68, 156 La. 111, 1924 La. LEXIS 1986, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rodriguez-v-succession-of-mcfettridge-la-1924.