Opinion ID: 2338603
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Mr. May's conduct in connection with the drafting of the will.

Text: We have seen that on January 15, 1946, testatrix expressed to Mr. Ruslander her desire to provide for her son's children, impliedly to a larger extent than the one-third of her estate provided in her former wills for her son and after his death for his children. A very few days later  sometime between January 20 and 25th according to Mr. May's testimony  there occurred the visit of Mr. and Mrs. May to the testatrix at which it is clear, as will appear from her own subsequent declarations, that she was bullied into disinheriting these grandchildren. The interview was an extremely tumultuous one. Two witnesses testified that Mrs. May's voice was especially loud and harsh. The Mays state that the only subject for discussion was whether the testatrix should give half of her estate to Mrs. May and half to the latter's children, or two-thirds to Mrs. May and a third to her children. It would not seem that the decision of that question would require a long and acrimonious argument, since that was a relatively minor matter for the Mays themselves to decide and one as to which the testatrix would have had no particular feeling or interest, while Mrs. May testified that she herself did not care about it one way or the other. Why, then, was the discussion so heated? And why, as the witnesses testified did the testatrix come away from it agitated, depressed, and sobbing throughout the ensuing night? There are two interesting matters to be noted in connection with this discussion. The one is that Mr. May originally testified that the agreement finally reached was that his wife was to obtain one-half of the estate and her children one-half, and yet the will as drafted by him gave his wife two-thirds and her children one-third, so that it did not even conform with Mr. May's original version as to the outcome of the interview. The other interesting point is that Mr. May admits that the testatrix never expressly said she did not want Herbert's children to get anything, but that he merely inferred that from the fact that she said she wanted to change the one-third to Herbert and that the question was whether to make it half and half or one-third and two-thirds, Mr. May's inference being that this question related to a division, not between his family and Herbert's children, but between his wife and their own children. When we have in mind the testimony of Mr. Ruslander as to what the testatrix told him concerning her intentions in regard to her will, the loud shouting of Mrs. May in the discussion becomes readily understandable. It is no doubt true that the Mays were correct when they testified that the subject of the bitter discussion was the choice between a division of the estate half and half or two-thirds and one-third, but not, as they assert, as determining a division between Mrs. May and her children but between the May branch of the family and Herbert's branch, and it is no wonder that it took a prolonged time of shouting and intimidation of this sick and harassed woman to make her not only recede from her intention to increase the former share that would have come to Herbert's children but, on the contrary, take away from them entirely what in all her previous wills she had provided for her son and them. It is true, as has already been conceded, that no outside witness was present at this family altercation between the testatrix and Mr. and Mrs. May to testify to exactly what transpired there. But, if such an auditory witness is indispensable in a case to prove undue influence, such a witness could rarely if ever be produced, since witnesses are usually not only not invited but are carefully excluded on such occasions. It is from all the events that transpire and from all the testimony and circumstances that undue influence may, and in the present instance must, be inferred, not merely as a suspicion, but as a fact entirely clear if one is not to be unduly naive or credulous. Mr. May, as has been previously stated, claims that one of the chief reasons why the testatrix disinherited Herbert's children was because she did not wish their mother to get any of her money, and yet he frankly admits that he did not advise her either as her son-in-law or as her lawyer, in which capacity he was then acting, that it was not necessary for her to disinherit them in order to prevent her daughter-in-law from profiting thereby. This is one of the most telling facts in this case. If the testatrix told Mr. May, as he claims that she did, that she did not want Rose to get any of her money and was therefore leaving all of it to the Mays, certainly any disinterested lawyer performing his duty would have immediately pointed out to her the very simple way in which she could have accomplished her desire without disinheriting these children. Mr. May is guilty of what must have been a deliberate concealment on his part of this obvious solution of any such problem, so that it clearly appears that, at best, the will here in controversy is not the will of an instructed Anna Frank, but of an Anna Frank grossly deceived by the intentional silence of her attorney trying to get her money for his own family. It has been repeatedly held, not only that a misrepresentation may be sufficient in itself to constitute undue influence that will void a will ( Phillips' Estate, 244 Pa. 35, 43, 90 A. 457, 460; Buhan v. Keslar, 328 Pa. 312, 319, 194 A. 917, 920; Olshefski's Estate, 337 Pa. 420, 424, 11 A. 2d 487, 489; Wetzel v. Edwards, 340 Pa. 121, 124, 16 A. 2d 441, 443; Ash Will, 351 Pa. 317, 322, 41 A. 2d 620, 622; King Will, 369 Pa. 523, 530, 87 A. 2d 469, 473; Robert's Will, 373 Pa. 7, 18, 94 A. 2d 780, 785) but that misrepresentations, in the eye of the law, are not confined merely to affirmative statements. The deliberate nondisclosure of a material fact amounts to culpable misrepresentation no less than does an intentional affirmation of a material falsity: Neuman v. Corn Exchange National Bank & Trust Co., 356 Pa. 442, 451, 51 A. 2d 759, 764. In Restatement, Torts, § 529, comment a, it is said (and this is here particularly pertinent): whether or not a partial disclosure of the facts is materially misleading depends upon whether the person making the statement knows or believes that the undisclosed facts might affect the recipient's conduct in the transaction in hand. (See also § 551). Acting as the testatrix's lawyer it was Mr. May's bounden duty to represent her without any consideration whatever of his own personal interest; he was frank enough to testify, when cross-examined as to why he did not tell the testatrix that it was possible to set up a testamentary trust so that her daughter-in-law could obtain no interest in it, that he was naturally interested in the May family! In all the former wills that testatrix wrote she had employed other lawyers,  A. Leo Weil, William A. Wilson, or S. Leo Ruslander. Mr. May, as a lawyer conversant as he must or should have been with legal ethics, certainly knew (especially if the testatrix told him, as he claims, that she wished to leave all her estate to his wife and children and disinherit these other children who were equally the natural objects of her bounty) that he should not undertake to act as her professional adviser in the drafting of her will. Obviously realizing this he tried to excuse himself by testifying that the testatrix told him she did not want anybody, any of her friends, to know about her personal business. What a pathetically weak excuse in view of the fact that not only, as previously stated, she had always employed other lawyers, but because, even at this very time, she discussed the question of her will with her very close and trusted friend, Mr. Ruslander! Mr. May, fully cognizant of the position in which he was placing himself and uneasy in regard to it, had continually in his mind the inevitable accusation of undue influence. It was because of that realization that he himself wrote into the testatrix's will the alleged lame and false reason why she was disinheriting her son's children and instead giving her entire estate to his own family. And it was also because of that realization that he resorted to the extremely clever maneuver which I shall now discuss,  a scheme to obtain in advance a respectable witness who might serve to give countenance to the contention that the testatrix had not been the victim of any undue influence exerted by him and his wife.