Opinion ID: 2351127
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Second Exception.

Text: This exception challenges rulings barring the appellants from proving what they had earned during the years 1921 to 1941, during minority and thereafter, what substantial amounts of their earnings they had turned over to their father, to help him in maintaining his home, and what understanding, if any, they had with him concerning such contributions, presumably in connection with how he should dispose of any property he might possess at the time of his death by will. They assert that they were prepared to show, also, the comparative earnings of the father, in the years 1921 to 1946, inclusive. It is in evidence that he suffered a shock, at an unstated time, and it may be, although the point is not covered in the testimony of the witnesses whose evidence is before us, that this occurred in 1946, and terminated his earning capacity. The evidence excluded might have had a tendency, if coupled with information disclosing the size of the estate of the testator, which is not disclosed by the record, to show that he died possessing more property than he would have had if the contributions sought to be proved had not passed into his hands, and the principle that, under appropriate circumstances, the source of the property of a testator may be proved, when the question of undue influence is in issue, has been recognized in many cases. As it is stated in Corpus Juris, 68 C.J. 772, Sec. 460: Evidence tending to show the source of the property is admissible to sustain the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the will, particularly where the testator was under an obligation to the person from whom the property was derived to make a certain disposition of the property. Reference to the cases cited in support of this textual statement, however, discloses that the circumstances held applicable have always been far different from any which might have been disclosed by responsive answers to the questions to which the rulings challenged relate. These, as set forth in the Bill of Exceptions, were: Q When did you start work? Q How long did you continue to work while living at home? Q While you were working what part of what you did earn did you turn in to your father? Q Did you continue to work and turn in money at home after you were 21? Q Did you have any talk after you became 21 with your father about simply paying board? Q Roughly how much had you contributed during the time you had been working? They were asked of Antonio Paradis when he was giving his testimony, and were excluded on objection, and the Bill of Exceptions states that similar, if not identical, questions were asked of Jeanne Theriault, with the same rulings. The issue as to whether the rulings were proper was raised by exceptions noted and preserved, but the circumstances are not comparable to those presented in the cases cited in Corpus Juris to support the textual statement quoted: Glover v. Hayden, 4 Cush., Mass., 580; In re Ruffino's Estate, 116 Cal. 304, 48 P. 127; and Rhea v. Madison, 151 Ky. 262, 151 S.W. 667. Neither is there anything in additional cases cited by the appellants which relates to contributions made by children to a parent for the maintenance of a home, while residing in it with him, particularly when it is noted that some part of the discussion between parent and child in this case, after the latter became of age, was about simply paying board. We cannot recognize that any child may restrict the right of a parent to dispose of his property by will in such manner as he may wish by contributing to the maintenance of a home, during minority or thereafter. The claim of the appellants, apparently, is not that the contributions in question restricted the free will of their father, but that the facts that they were made, and that the son who was named as the contingent beneficiary in the will made no corresponding ones, tended to support their claim that the father was subjected to undue influence, exercised by that son or by his mother. The assertion was made in argument by the appellants that it was admitted that Joseph, the contingent beneficiary, made no contributions prior to the execution of the wills. This may have been said on the authority of the testimony of the scrivener, that the testator told him, when the will was prepared, that Joseph had made no contributions except as payments on the building might mean that. If it has any additional support in the evidence, it must appear in the testimony of some witness whose evidence is not presented in the limited record carried by the Bill of Exceptions. The reference to payments on the building is to the fact that the testator told the scrivener that he and his wife had borrowed money on a mortgage a short time before the will was made, and that Joseph was paying on the buildings. In considering this exception, we are hampered by the fact that the record is incomplete. We are unable to say, with no knowledge of what testimony was given by Antonio Paradis and Jeanne Theriault, or by other witnesses, whether the testimony excluded would have any bearing on the issue of undue influence. The scrivener testified that the testator went into some detail in discussing his children, asserting: something to the effect that the children were all pretty well off, or getting along all right, and noting that one daughter was a nun, saying that he: was kind of proud of that. In further support of this exception, the appellants cite us to an additional statement in the section of Corpus Juris already cited, that: In passing on the questions of fraud, mistake, and undue influence, it is proper to consider the nature and contents of    the will itself.    to compare provisions    with other evidence to determine whether they are unjust, unequal, or unnatural, as such inequality or unnaturalness    bears on the question of fraud and undue influence, although it is insufficient in itself to establish such matters, and hence is immaterial and incompetent in the entire absence of other evidence, and to the Case Note accompanying the report of Meier v. Buchter, 197 Mo. 68, 94 S.W. 883, 6 L.R.A.,N.S., 202, in the last cited report thereof, as well as other authorities, including 57 Am.Jur. 291, Par. 407, an extended annotation in 66 A.L.R. commencing at Page 228, with special reference to Page 250, and several decided cases from other jurisdictions, dealing with distributions of property by will held to be unjust, unnatural, unreasonable, or capricious. It is said in the Case Note aforesaid that: The authorities are all agreed that an unnatural distribution of property by the testator may be considered in connection with other facts going to show undue influence. The case annotated quotes 29 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, Second Edition, as saying, at Pages 115 and 116, that: Evidence that the provisions of a will are unreasonable, unjust, capricious, and unnatural is not sufficient in itself to establish undue influence   ; but it is proper to be considered along with other evidence as going to show such undue influence   . And for the purpose of setting out more clearly the unnaturalness of the will, it may be shown that relations between the testator and the relatives not provided for were pleasant, or that the latter were dependent for support on the former. All these authorities recognize that undue influence cannot be proved by reference to the will and its provisions alone. Corpus Juris makes that point directly, asserting that it is immaterial and incompetent in the entire absence of other evidence. The Case Note declares that it may be considered with other facts, and the Encyclopedia suggests the nature of such facts in its reference to relatives not provided for being dependent for support on the testator. Regardless of such limitations, the subject matter under discussion in all instances is a will carrying an unnatural or unreasonable distribution, and it cannot be said that any man possessing a small property is providing for such a distribution in making a will leaving his entire estate to his wife. We have no knowledge about the size of the estate here involved, but it is difficult to believe that it could be a large one if, as the excluded evidence was apparently designed to prove, the children of a first wife were making contributions to the maintenance of a home, after a step-mother appeared on the scene and increased the family group by two children borne to the father by her. As the record stands, the possibility that there might be such supporting evidence as dependency, noted in the Encyclopedia, is eliminated by the testimony of the scrivener that the testator asserted to him that the children he was disinheriting were pretty well off or getting along all right. One thing about the will of Narcisse Paradis is apparent on its face, the inequality of his provisions for his several children. On this point it may be sufficient to refer to the one case cited in Corpus Juris to support its textual statement about unjust and unequal provisions of wills. That case is Storer v. Zimmerman, 28 Minn. 9, 8 N.W. 827, where it is said: mere inequality, however great, in the distribution of    property among children    is no evidence of undue influence   . If it were evidence from which a jury might find undue influence to avoid the will, the issue practically presented    in every case    would be, is the will such as the jury, if in the testator's circumstances, would have made? Few wills could stand if such were the test. The second exception must be overruled. The limited record before us cannot justify the belief that responsive answers to the questions involved would have brought the case within the principle stated in Corpus Juris concerning proof of the source of testator's title to the property he possessed at the time of death and make the distribution he attempted to provide for by will unjust, unnatural or unreasonable in any way, and the inequality in his treatment of his children is amply explained by his own references to their situation at the time the will was made. To hark back to the quotation from Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, carried in Meier v. Buchter, supra, there is no evidence in the limited record before us concerning the relations between the testator and the disinherited children when the will was made, and no suggestion of any dependency of any of them upon him for support.