Case ID: nj-eq_89/html/0162-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Stevens, Yice-Ordinary.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of the probate of the last will of Samuel Richter.
    [Decided September 6th, 1917.]
    In a case not free from doubt but where three witnesses of respectability testify to the legal execution .of a will, neither the draftsman or the • other two witnesses taking anything under it, and where the will is one the testator would naturally have made, the will should be sustained.
    On appeal from the Essex county orphans court.
    
      Mr. William Greenfield and Mr. Benjamin M. Weinberg, for the appellant.
    
      Mr. William H. Osborne, for the respondent.
   Stevens, Yice-Ordinary.

This case is not free from doubt, but the evidence does hot convince me that the will was forged. I cannot usefully add anything to the opinion of the judge of the orphans court, with which I concur. Three witnesses of respectability testify to the execution. Neither to the draftsman, nor to the other two witnesses, does the will give anything. It was just such a will as .the testator would naturally have made. There is not the slightest independent evidence of a conspiracy to commit forgery and perjury entered 'into between these witnesses and the widow. Under these circumstances I think the decree of the orphans court should be affirmed.