Case ID: nj-eq_103/html/0346-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pee Cueiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of the estate of Edward McDowell, deceased; Beata McDowell Clayville-Smith, appellant, v. Montclair Trust Company et al., respondents.
    [Argued May 22d, 1928.
    Decided October 15th, 1928.]
    “A delusion is the mind’s spontaneous conception and acceptance of that, as a fact, which has no real existence except in its imagination, and its persistent adherence to it against all evidence.” For a will to be set aside on the ground that at the time it was made the testator was under an insane delusion, the test propounded by this definition must be met. The case sub judice fails to meet that test.
    On appeal from a decree in the prerogative court advised by Vice-Ordinary Baches, whose opinion is reported in 140 Atl. Rep. 281.
    
    
      Mr. Ralph F. Lum, for the appellant.
    
      
      Mr. Robert M. Boyd, Jr., for the respondent Montclair Trust Company.
    
      Mr. J ohn M. Enright (Mr. Elbridge L. Adams, of the New York bar, on the brief), for,the respondent Art Students’ League of New York.
   Pee Cueiam.

The learned vice-ordinary, after an exhaustive examination of the evidence, concluded that the testator, Edward McDowell, was not the victim of an insane delusion, in the sense intended by the decisions, at the time of making his will, and with that conclusion we agree. In line with the authorities cited by the vice-ordinary is the ease of Smith v. Smith, 48 N. J. Eq. 566, in which testator, the father of a family, believed that he never had had any children and was incapable of having any, and that his children were the fruit of his wife’s adultery. His will was sustained against an attack on the ground of delusion, in an opinion by the late Chancellor McGill sitting as ordinary. In the headnote to that case it is laid down that “a delusion is the mind’s spontaneous conception and acceptance of that, as a fact, which has no real existence except in its imagination, and its persistent adherence to it against all evidence.” The case subjudice fails to satisfy the test propounded in Smith v. Smith, and in Middleditch v. Williams, 45 N. J. Eq. 726, relied on by the vice-ordinary; and, hence, the decree of the prerogative court, sustaining the will, is affirmed.

For affirmance — The Ohiee-Justice, Teehchaed, Paekee, Mihtueh, Kalisch, Black, Katzehbach, Campbell, Lloyd, White, Yah Bttskikk, McGlehhoh, Kays, Heteield, Deae, JJ. 15.

For reversal — None.