Title: Sanford v. Coleman

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

418 So. 2d 856 (1982)
Betty Sue SANFORD, et al.
v.
J. T. COLEMAN, et al.
80-772.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 30, 1982.
Rehearing Denied August 27, 1982.
*857 J. B. Nix, Jr., Evergreen, for appellants.
David T. Hyde, Jr., Evergreen, for appellees.
ALMON, Justice.
This is a will contest. At issue is the last will and testament of Nancy Beatrice Diamond Odom. The circuit court held the will invalid because it was obtained by undue influence. We reverse.
Mrs. Odom and her husband of more than 20 years, David S. Odom, Sr., were residents of Conecuh County, Alabama. On November 25, 1969, Mr. and Mrs. Odom went to Metairie, Louisiana, where a daughter of Mr. Odom's by a previous marriage, Betty Sue Sanford, resided. Mrs. Sanford testified that Mrs. Odom told her she had come to Louisiana to make a will, supposedly to keep Mrs. Odom's two brothers from knowing about the will, because the two brothers had already contested ownership of the land in question which had previously belonged to Mrs. Odom's father. Mr. Odom is the sole beneficiary under the will.
On November 26, 1969, Mrs. Sanford's husband took Mr. and Mrs. Odom and L.W. Dixon, Mrs. Sanford's uncle, to the office of Phillip B. Smith, an attorney. It was in Mr. Smith's office that the will was executed. The will was handwritten; witnessed by L.W. Dixon and Mr. Odom; and there was an acknowledgment signed by Phillip B. Smith as a Notary Public. The Odoms returned home that same day.
Mrs. Odom died on March 7, 1974, but her will was not filed for probate until March 31, 1978. On December 1, 1978, a complaint was filed by parties who would have had an interest in the estate of Mrs. Odom had she died intestate. The complaint alleged that the will was invalid because the will was not duly executed; the will was not executed by Mrs. Odom; and the signature on the will was not the actual signature of Mrs. Odom. At the time of trial, Mr. Odom and L.W. Dixon were deceased. The court entered a judgment finding:
It should be observed that the complaint did not contain a claim of undue influence. We need not address the issue of whether the complaint could be considered to have been amended by implied consent of the parties under ARCP, Rule 15(b), in view of our holding that the evidence is insufficient to support the judgment setting aside the will because of undue influence.
Pruitt v. Pruitt, 343 So. 2d 495 (1976).
The court was correct in finding a confidential relationship and also that Mr. Odom was a favored beneficiary under the will.
The second requirement for a finding of undue influence is that the beneficiary was dominant and controlling in the relationship. There was no evidence that Mr. Odom was the dominant party in the relationship. The fact that Mr. Odom went with his wife to Louisiana and to the lawyer's office does not give rise to the inference that he was dominant in the relationship. We suspect the majority of husbands would do the same. It would require more evidence than was presented here to show dominance on Mr. Odom's part. Whether the beneficiary was the dominant party must be proven by some evidence of controlling influence over the testatrix's purpose by the other. Smith v. Smith, 384 So. 2d 1069 (Ala. 1980).
Additionally, the evidence was insufficient to prove undue activity on Mr. Odom's part in procuring the execution of the will.
In Brunson v. Brunson, 278 Ala. 131, 176 So. 2d 490 (1965), the court stated:
We observe that there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the execution of the will and its late filing for probate, but suspicion alone is insufficient to set aside a will. It is clear, even to the untrained eye, that the signature of Mr. Odom as a witness to the will did not match the signature on the petition to probate the will. Resolution of this discrepancy does not, however, tip the scales on the issue of undue influence.
The mere fact that Mr. Odom accompanied his wife to Louisiana and to the attorney's office and that he witnessed the will is not sufficient to establish undue influence. Undue influence involves moral coercion to the extent of destroying or impairing the free agency of the testatrix. Cook v. Morton, 241 Ala. 188, 1 So. 2d 890 (1941). There was no contention that Mrs. Odom was not of sound mind. Moreover, it is not unusual for one spouse to leave property to another spouse, especially when there are no children of the marriage. It is not influence that will defeat a will, it is undue influence.
The judgment is therefore reversed and the cause remanded.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C.J. and EMBRY and ADAMS, JJ., concur.
FAULKNER, J., concurs in the result (with opinion).
FAULKNER, Justice (concurring in the result).
This is an unusual case because the issue decidedundue influencewas not the appealed issue. That issue rested in the mind of the trial judge. Appellants state in brief that the will was not duly executed by the testatrix. They all agree that there was no undue influence. Their complaint is the improper execution of the will. On this issue, if the trial judge had ruled on it, I think that the appellants' evidence falls short of establishing improper execution of the will.