Whedon v. Knight

37 S.E. 972, 112 Ga. 639, 1901 Ga. LEXIS 34
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedJanuary 26, 1901
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 37 S.E. 972 (Whedon v. Knight) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whedon v. Knight, 37 S.E. 972, 112 Ga. 639, 1901 Ga. LEXIS 34 (Ga. 1901).

Opinions

Lewis, J.

Mrs. Emma Whedon, of Louisville, Ky., filed with the ordinary of Pike county a petition for probate of the will of Lucy A. Seamans. This will was executed in Kentucky on October 23, 1894, and was duly probated there on August 15, 1895, and admitted to record according to the laws of Kentucky. Mrs. Whedon was nominated executrix of the will, and had qualified as such in the State of Kentucky. The testatrix owned certain property, both real and personal, in Pike county, Georgia; and the executrix filed a petition with the ordinary of Pike county, asking that the will be probated and admitted to record in his court, as provided in section 4 of the act of the General Assembly of Georgia approved December 17, 1894 (Acts 1894, p. 102), and that letters testamentary be granted to her. To this application Herbert A. Knight filed a caveat. It seems he was nominated executor of a will made by Lucy A. Seamans before she left Georgia for Kentucky. One ground of the caveat was that Lucy A. Seamans, at the time of the execution of said will, was incompetent to make a will, and did not at said time make a legal will-that could be admitted to probate in the county of Pike, the pretended will not [640]*640being witnessed as provided by law. The caveat further denied that Lucy A. Seamans was a resident of Louisville, Ky., at the time of her death, but alleged that she was in Louisville, Ky., on a visit, and that her legal residence was in Pike county, Georgia. This case was appealed from the court of ordinary to the superior court of Pike county. In the latter court the caveat was demurred to by the propounder of the Kentucky will, upon the ground that the question in the caveat touching the capacity of the deceased to make a will was settled by the judgment of the court of Jefferson county, Ky., admitting the will to probate. The demurrer was sustained on this point. The real and only issue was whether or not the testatrix was a resident of Kentucky at the time she executed the will. It was insisted by the caveator that she had never changed her residence from Pike county, Ga. It was urged by the propounder that she had removed, and was, at the time of making the will and at the time of her death, a resident of Louisville, Ky. There was considerable conflict in the testimony as to the mental condition of testatrix when she left Georgia in company with Mrs. Whedon, who was her half-sister. Witnesses introduced for the caveator testified that she was in an imbecile condition, and other witnesses testified to her sanity and clearness of mind. A large preponderance of the evidence, however, of witnesses living in Kentucky, introduced in behalf of the propounder, was to the effect that her mind was clear while she remained in that State, and that she repeatedly asserted that she had made Kentucky her home. She resided in Louisville with her half-sister, the propounder, who was nominated as executrix of her will, for the remainder of her life, having lived eight months after accompanying her sister home. The jury returned a verdict for the caveator; whereupon the propounder made a motion for a new trial, and excepts to the judgment of the court overruling the same.

On the trial of this case there were quite a number of witnesses introduced on behalf of the propounder, all of whom testified to the perfect sanity of Mrs. Seamans during her whole stay of eight months in Kentucky, with the possible exception of the day before her death, when she became unconscious; that her mind was clear; that she was intelligent; and that she had repeatedly declared that Kentucky was her home and' announced her intention to reside with her sister during the remainder of her life. It seems that, soon after reaching [641]*641that home, a physician of considerable reputation and prominence in Louisville was procured for her, and that he treated her up to the time of her death. This physician testified to her perfect sanity and intelligence duringthis whole time, except the day before her death, and to her frequent expressions, while in this state of mind, of satisfaction at the change she had made in her home. There was especially an abundance of evidence showing the sane and clear condition of her mind at the time of the execution of her will. The physician himself was one of the witnesses to the instrument, and stated that he read it over to her in the presence of the other witness'; that she approved it, and when it was signed and fully executed she seemed contented and gratified. On the probate of this will before the proper court in Kentucky, it appears that proof was introduced of the sane condition of the testatrix and the proper execution of the will, which was there admitted to record. This testimony touching her mental condition and her purpose to change her residence from Georgia to Kentucky was practically without contradiction. There were two women who acted as her nurses in Louisville, one of whom testified consistently to the sane condition of Mrs. Seamans during her lifetime in Kentucky, and to her perfect satisfaction with that as her home. The other nurse, by interrogatories, answered in effect that her mind was not at all times sound, but that she had lucid intervals when she would be perfectly clear, and she further testified that Mrs. Seamans had expressed a desire to live in Macon, Georgia. An affidavit made by this same witness was introduced in reply to these interrogatories, and the testimony of the officer who took her depositions, that she dictated, in substance, the contents of the affidavit to him. In that affidavit she swore that the testatrix was at all times perfectly sane and rational and gave no intimation whatever that she did not desire Kentucky as her home. The testimony that she wished her home in Macon was in conflict with all the evidence on the subject in behalf of caveators, it being undisputed that Milner, Pike county, was last her home when she left Georgia, and it not being pretended that she then resided in Macon.

After a careful review of this case, we discover that the court failed to give, in the body of the charge, any instructions with reference to Mrs. Seamans’s manifesting a purpose or intention to change her residence to the domicile of her sister after going to her home in Louisville. We fail to find in the record any evidence [642]*642tending to show that, while the testatrix was in Louisville, she was not perfectly capable of forming an intention to change her domicile. The evidence certainly authorizes, if it does not require, the inference that during her entire stay there her mind was clear, strong, and well-balanced, and the further inference that by her acts while in Kentucky she had in fact changed her domicile to that State. In further corroboration of that purpose was the fact that she remained there the rest of her life, and there is no reliable evidence'that she ever altered her intention or expressed a desire to move back to Georgia. The propounder’s theory of the case is based mainly upon this branch of the testimony.

One ground in the motion for a new trial is, that the court erred in failing, to charge the jury, as part of the general charge, “that if Mrs. Seamans, the testatrix, went to Kentucky on a visit, and after her arrival there decided to make that her domicile, and there so expressed her intention 'to make Kentucky her home or domicile, then that would have made her a resident of Kentucky, provided she had sufficient mental capacity to form an intention of changing her residence.” Complaint is also made that in his general charge the judge specially instructed the jury as follows: “ I charge you that, in order to constitute a change of domicile in this case, the evidence must show that Mrs.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
37 S.E. 972, 112 Ga. 639, 1901 Ga. LEXIS 34, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whedon-v-knight-ga-1901.